To intensify the monitoring of forest cover and contribute to the end of deforestation in the most threatened and devastated biome in Brazil, the SOS Mata Atlântica Foundation, Arcplan, and MapBiomas are launching the Mata Atlântica Deforestation Alert System (SAD), a new tool to monitor and disseminate information about deforestation in the region. 

The system allows for the rapid identification and reporting of deforestation in areas as small as 0.3 hectares (ha), monitored using high-resolution satellite images. Additionally, the new system generates monthly alerts, providing agility to support decision-making by environmental enforcement agencies (IBAMA, state public prosecutors' offices and secretariats, environmental agencies and police, among others), as well as entities that have mandatory or voluntary policies for purchasing products or financing supply chains with zero deforestation (such as banks, traders, supermarkets, and the food, wood, pulp, and bioenergy industries).

The first bulletin from the Mata Atlântica SAD gathers alerts collected and validated throughout the year 2021, presenting the initial partial results of deforestation in the biome during that period. This is a pilot edition in which alerts from four regions were compiled: the Tietê River basin (São Paulo), the Iguaçu River basin (Paraná), the Jequitinhonha River basin (Bahia and Minas Gerais), and the Miranda and Aquidauana Rivers in the region of the municipality of Bonito (Mato Grosso do Sul). This first edition of the bulletin was supported by the Flex Foundation. 

Director of Knowledge at SOS Mata Atlântica Foundation, Luís Fernando Guedes Pinto explains that these locations were selected for the pilot because Minas Gerais, Bahia, Paraná, and São Paulo have been among the leaders in deforestation in the Atlantic Forest in recent years. “In these states, we chose hydrographic basins where the problem is usually more critical, mainly due to agricultural expansion. The Tietê River basin in São Paulo is not among the regions with the highest deforestation rates in Brazil, but it has the particularity of being a region of metropolises and large cities, where urban expansion also threatens the Atlantic Forest,” he explains. Bonito (MS), in turn, was the municipality that deforested the most in the biome between 2019 and 2020.

In the four monitored basins in 2021, there were 1,103 alerts totaling 6,739 hectares of deforestation. Each hectare corresponds, on average, to the area of a soccer field.

The vast majority of alerts (70%) refer to losses of less than three hectares, highlighting the new profile of deforestation in the Atlantic Forest, consisting of a combination of small cuts of natural forest, which poses challenges to enforcement. The Iguaçu basin (PR and SC) had the highest number of alerts with this profile: 423.

According to Guedes Pinto, the new data confirms that, even though the Atlantic Forest Law is in force, deforestation remains a major problem in the biome. "We continue to lose old and mature forests, but increasingly we see the cutting of young forests that are in regeneration. This vegetation plays a very important role in connecting older forest remnants and providing ecosystem services, such as water conservation. However, many of these regenerating areas are deforested before the vegetation reaches a stage of greater maturity, when they can accumulate more carbon and harbor greater biodiversity. Therefore, the conservation of the Atlantic Forest depends on a strategy that combines restoration, native tree planting, and deforestation control," he says.

Starting from the next report of the SAD Atlantic Forest, the entire biome will be monitored according to the boundaries of the Atlantic Forest Law application map. 

All data from the SAD Atlantic Forest will be made available monthly on the MapBiomas Alert platform, and the results will be compiled in quarterly bulletins published by the SOS Mata Atlântica Foundation at: https://www.sosma.org.br/iniciativas/alertas/.   

Methodology

The average size of each deforested area in the Atlantic Forest has been decreasing over the years. Losses of less than three hectares in size and in young native forests are now common, conditions different from those traditionally monitored by the Atlas of Forest Remnants of the Atlantic Forest – a collaboration between the INPE (National Institute for Space Research) and SOS Mata Atlântica that has been a reference, year after year, since 1989, for monitoring forest cover and deforestation in the biome.

Building upon and enhancing the annual monitoring conducted by the Atlas, the SAD Mata Atlântica utilizes an automated identification method based on the comparison of images with 10-meter resolution captured by Sentinel 2 satellites. "This method is capable of detecting signs of deforestation from 0.3 hectares, which are validated, refined, and individually audited using high-resolution images and cross-referenced with public information, including properties from the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) and embargoes and deforestation authorizations from SINAFLOR/IBAMA, for dissemination on MapBiomas Alert, a unique, open, and transparent platform that monitors the entire Brazilian territory," says Marcos Rosa, director of Arcplan. 

According to Tasso Azevedo, general coordinator of MapBiomas, this approach "provides a new lens for monitoring the native vegetation of the Atlantic Forest and contributes to the definitive end of its deforestation, which is essential for mitigating climate change, conserving water and biodiversity, and promoting Brazil's prosperity." "The SAD Mata Atlântica joins other alert systems for Brazilian biomes, forming a network of civil society organizations and research entities that monitor all ecosystems in Brazil," Azevedo concludes. 

About the SOS Mata Atlântica Foundation

The SOS Mata Atlântica Foundation is a Brazilian environmental NGO whose mission is to inspire society to defend the Atlantic Forest. It works to promote public policies for the conservation of Brazil's most threatened biome through forest monitoring, production of studies, demonstrative projects, dialogue with public and private sectors, improvement of environmental legislation, communication, and engagement of society.

About Arcplan

ArcPlan is a private company with over 20 years of experience in issues related to environmental mapping and monitoring to support actions aimed at environmental conservation, sustainable use, and planning. 

About MapBiomas

MapBiomas is a collaborative network formed by NGOs, universities, and technology startups, which reveals the transformations of the Brazilian territory through science, making knowledge about land use accessible in order to pursue conservation and combat climate change. It produces an annual mapping of land cover and land use since 1985, validates and produces reports for each deforestation event detected in Brazil since January 2019, and monitors water surfaces and fire scars monthly since 1985.