Amazon Brigades

Actions against deforestation and fires

In November 2019, a study signed by 11,258 scientists reiterated the current climate emergency facing humanity, in which deforestation and climate change are decisive causes of the loss of biodiversity and, consequently, of the vital environmental services provided by the forest for the life of the planet.

These serious threats to biodiversity and the integrity of the terrestrial system, such as deforestation and climate change, are sufficient to qualify almost half of Amazonian trees as endangered, according to the criteria of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the IUCN.

FOREST LOSS IN 2019

During 2019, the Amazon Rainforest suffered from the advance of fires, totalling a loss of 9,762 km² of forest, representing the largest variation between one year and another since 1995. This corresponds to an increase of 30% in relation to the year 2018.

That forest loss reaffirmed the activation of the alert and emergency state of the planetary society in early 2019, when the Real-Time Deforestation Detection System - DETER, showed signs of an atypical and very dangerous year for public health and biodiversity.

Objective

The Amazon Brigades project promotes emergency actions to monitor and combat deforestation and fires, as well as environmental awareness in the Amazon.

What we did in 2019

Equipe SOS Amazônia - ações emergenciais em parceria com o WWF

Together, in 2019, the Amazon Brigades project worked to combat, monitor and raise awareness of fire activity in 354 areas in the Juruá Basin, including the Alto Juruá Extractive Reserve, the Riozinho da Liberdade Extractive Reserve, the Mogno State Forest and the Gregório River State Forest, reaching the Juruá, Envira and Tarauacá rivers.

The team discussed with community members about the main challenges for a healthy reconciliation of their subsistence and economic agricultural activities, including solutions pointed out to reduce the impact of fire use on public health and human well-being.

Training of Fire Brigadiers

Capacitação de brigadistas com o apoio do Corpo de Bombeiros de Feijó, Acre

SOS Amazônia also held a workshop to train 19 fire brigadiers under the instruction of the Military Fire Department of the State of Acre, in which 12 brigadiers were selected to work in the municipalities of Feijó, Tarauacá and Marechal Thaumaturgo.

The brigadiers were trained in the basics of using GPS and were able to access and monitor the data of fire spots by satellites of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), on its system portal, and through the integrated Google Earth for monitoring fires.

What we plan to do in 2020

This year, in addition to the areas where we operated in 2019, we want to expand the work of Amazon Brigades with actions in the Acre River Basin, the most historically deforested region and that covers the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve. In order to help our team take action, we have launched an online campaign to collect donations that will be destined to the activities of this project. Your support is worth a lot to keep the forest standing.