Our overall objective:
We seek to increase the effectiveness of forest management, land use
practices and forest law enforcement in the Amazon Basin by ensuring
that credible and reliable forest landscape information is publicly
available in a user-friendly format. We are committed to finding
practical and concrete ways to complement and strengthen the wide
variety of important efforts underway in the region.
Human Pressure in the Brazilian Amazon Forests
GFW, in partnership with IMAZON, conducted an assessment of human impact
in the forests of the Brazilian Amazon Biome. The first of its kind, the
project combines a series of existing data layers such as roads,
vegetations, urban centers and settlements to identify areas of human
settlements and areas under pressure. Preliminary results show that the
human impact is greater than previously estimated.
Project supporters: German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and
Development (BMZ), the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ford
Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Gordon and
Betty Moore Foundation, ABN AMRO Bank, and IKEA.
Mapping of un-official roads in Pará
GFW, in partnership with IMAZON, sponsored a project to map
un-official roads with satellite images. This project used Landsat
images to examine forest openings, identify roadways and potential
logging patios, and identify areas at risk for deforestation and logging
in the Midlands of Pará State, an area with some of the greatest forest
loss in the Brazilian Amazon. Principal project supporters included ABN
AMRO Bank and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and
Development (BMZ).
The results of this project were released by Imazon in the Summer of
2005. Imazon continues to map un-official roads in other states of
the Brazilian Amazon.
Current operational partner:
Imazon (www.imazon.org.br) is a
non-profit research institution whose mission is to promote sustainable
development in the Amazon region through studies, information
dissemination and professional training. The institute was founded in
1990, and its head office is located in the metropolitan region of Belém,
Pará, Brazil. In 15 years of operation, Imazon has published over 200
technical papers, of which 88 have appeared in international scientific
journals or as chapters of books.
For more information on these projects, please
contact:
Ruth Nogueron
Global Forest Watch
10 G Street NE, Suite 800
Washington, DC 20002
USA
ruthn@wri.org
1-202-729-7625
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