Satellites Reveal Paper of the Soybean in the Amazon

Hello reader!

It follows one communicates published in english on the day (08/07) in the website of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) announcing that satellites are revealing the paper of the soybean plantation in the deforestation of the Amazon region.

Duda Falcão


Satellites Reveal the Soybean Plantation

Contribution in the Amazon Deforestation


July 8, 2010

Since July 2006 a partnership with the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) has been enabling the satellite monitoring of the "soy moratorium," that established the commitment of industries and exporters of the Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries (ABIOVE) and the National Association of Grain Exporters ( ANEC) not to buy soybeans that come from deforested areas of the Amazon.

A report presented on Thursday (July, 7) shows the presence of soybeans in 6295 hectares that were deforested after July 2006. This area represents a 0.25% of Deforestation in the Amazon biome, in the years of 2007-2008-2009 in Mato Grosso, Para and Rondonia states. This area also corresponds to only 0.027% of all the soy planted in Brazil, which currently is 23.2 million ha. In order to renew for the third time the moratorium, in July 2009, the Working Group on Soybean (GTS) consisting of ABIOVE, ANEC, International Preservation, Greenpeace, IPAM, TNC and WWF-Brazil, made officially a partnership with the INPE to create a tool capable of detecting the presence of agricultural crops in deforested areas originated from the satellite images methodology.

"This tool allowed expanding the monitoring area significantly. At every new season, a larger number of polygons need to be monitored. The evaluation of the expansion of the Brazilian soybean production requires a methodology for the satellites monitoring", says Bernard Rudorff, INPE’s researcher.

It was also used in the mapping the FUNAI, IBAMA, IBGE and Imazon databases. The use and the land occupation survey in areas selected by INPE were conducted by Globalsat Agricultural Monitoring, hired by the GTS.


Source: WebSite of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE)

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