1
00:00:00,001 --> 00:00:01,936
[Fire Crackling]

2
00:00:01,936 --> 00:00:10,428
[onscreen text] Tracking Amazon Deforestation

3
00:00:10,428 --> 00:00:14,648
[Music]

4
00:00:14,648 --> 00:00:21,122
[Doug Morton] The Amazon is the largest tropical rainforest
in the world. At over six million square kilometers\h\h

5
00:00:21,122 --> 00:00:26,811
the Amazon basin and the tropical forests that\h
it holds, are about the same size as the entire\h\h

6
00:00:26,811 --> 00:00:32,483
continental United States. Home to millions\h
of people and tens of thousands of species.\h\h

7
00:00:33,267 --> 00:00:40,458
Landsat is NASA's longest-running record of our\h
changing planet. Data have been taken from Landsat\h\h

8
00:00:40,458 --> 00:00:47,181
satellites since 1972, and that allows us to\h
go back in time over several very important\h\h

9
00:00:47,181 --> 00:00:54,055
decades. The Landsat archive is perfectly timed\h
to capture many different waves of colonization\h\h

10
00:00:54,055 --> 00:00:55,139
across the Amazon.\h

11
00:00:55,439 --> 00:00:59,910
[Tasso Azevedo] It's very powerful in\hthis sense
because it's not just an image.

12
00:00:59,910 --> 00:01:06,951
It's actually a bunch of information. What happens\h
with Landsat is that it has several bands which\h\h

13
00:01:06,951 --> 00:01:12,723
have specific information. So pixel by pixel\h
you have at least seven pieces of information that\h\h

14
00:01:12,723 --> 00:01:19,914
can be combined in different ways to see different\h
things. So if you are interested to see vegetation\h\h

15
00:01:19,914 --> 00:01:24,235
there is one combination that you make that\h
can give you more information about vegetation.\h\h

16
00:01:25,319 --> 00:01:31,642
[Doug] Landsat satellite data are the most important\h
source we have about how much deforestation\h\h

17
00:01:31,642 --> 00:01:38,282
happens each year across the Amazon. 40 years\h
ago we see small-scale deforestation creating\h\h

18
00:01:38,282 --> 00:01:43,320
roads that look like fish bones into the forest.\h
But by the middle of the Landsat record, we see\h\h

19
00:01:43,320 --> 00:01:49,410
large-scale commodity production taking hold. So\h
today's deforestation across the Amazon frontier\h\h

20
00:01:49,410 --> 00:01:55,399
isn't a single-family, it's tractors and bulldozers\h
clearing large swaths of rainforest to make room\h\h

21
00:01:55,399 --> 00:02:01,972
for industrial-scale cattle ranching and\h
crops. So far the amount of area that's\h\h

22
00:02:01,972 --> 00:02:08,629
been deforested in the Brazilian Amazon alone is\h
equivalent to the size of the state of California.\h\h

23
00:02:09,830 --> 00:02:16,153
Deforestation in the Amazon happens with\h
fire. Today's deforestation looks like the\h\h

24
00:02:16,153 --> 00:02:21,909
large-scale clearing of swathes of rainforest,\h
using heavy machinery; and then the land is burned\h\h

25
00:02:22,526 --> 00:02:27,531
and burned again to remove all of the tropical\h
trees and timber.

26
00:02:29,300 --> 00:02:36,974
If we think about the size\hof a soccer field, we think about deforestation\h
in those same size categories. So deforestation\h\h

27
00:02:36,974 --> 00:02:42,096
in the early part of the Landsat record might\h
have been numbered in a single soccer field.\h\h

28
00:02:42,096 --> 00:02:47,985
Today's deforestation happens in\h
tens if not hundreds of soccer fields.

29
00:02:50,404 --> 00:02:53,607
The value of the Landsat archive is that we have\h\h

30
00:02:53,607 --> 00:02:59,213
a long-term memory of the changes that\h
have occurred across the Amazon frontier.

31
00:03:04,051 --> 00:03:09,657
And the MapBiomas record of land cover\h
across the Amazon is an excellent example.

32
00:03:11,825 --> 00:03:19,266
[Tasso] So MapBiomas is a network, formed by NGOs
that works with science universities and startups\h\h

33
00:03:19,266 --> 00:03:26,457
in technology. Our mission is to map and monitor\h
everything that is related to land cover, land use\h\h

34
00:03:26,457 --> 00:03:34,715
in Brazil, always with a historical perspective.
Because back in '75, 0.5% of deforestation,\h\h

35
00:03:34,715 --> 00:03:40,554
less than one percent. In '88 was 5% and now we are getting close to 20%

36
00:03:40,554 --> 00:03:46,560
of deforestation in the Amazon. You know between\h
20% and 25% what the science is saying that it's\h\h

37
00:03:46,560 --> 00:03:54,068
maybe the point of no return. And that's very fast,\h
right? 40-45 years to lose 20% of the Amazon.\h

38
00:03:54,919 --> 00:04:01,558
So we could precisely identify how many events of\h
deforestation happen in Brazil, or what's the size,\h\h

39
00:04:01,558 --> 00:04:05,796
who is responsible, what is the piece of land\h
that is there, if they have an authorization\h\h

40
00:04:05,796 --> 00:04:13,470
or not. And we find out that over 99% of all the\h
deforestation that happened in Brazil in 2019,\h\h

41
00:04:13,470 --> 00:04:19,310
it was illegal. It's really kind of a striking\h
information that make us to move and say, "Okay we\h\h

42
00:04:19,310 --> 00:04:25,716
can't accept, we just simply can't accept that we\h
live on a place where the illegality is actually\h\h

43
00:04:25,716 --> 00:04:30,754
the norm." Right? So this is like the type of thing\h
that we want to kind of use the remote sensing\h\h

44
00:04:30,754 --> 00:04:36,277
data to kind of shake in the decision-making\h
process of the different agencies in the public\h\h

45
00:04:36,277 --> 00:04:41,548
and in the private sector. To make better decisions\h
for what we call the stewardship of the management\h\h

46
00:04:41,548 --> 00:04:45,219
of our natural resources which are crucial for all\h
reasons in Brazil.

47
00:04:46,737 --> 00:04:49,590
The advantage of Landsat. 
First, it's free. \h\h

48
00:04:49,590 --> 00:04:56,263
That's absolutely crucial for us. Second, is\hthat 
there's no other sensor, not even with lower\h\h

49
00:04:56,263 --> 00:05:02,186
resolution, or high resolution, that will have a\h
history consistent over the time for 35 years\h\h

50
00:05:02,186 --> 00:05:03,771
of image available.\h

51
00:05:03,771 --> 00:05:08,942
So, if you really want to have\ha long history 
of understanding of any process in the Earth,

52
00:05:08,942 --> 00:05:10,828
Landsat is where you should\hgo.

53
00:05:10,911 --> 00:05:14,732
[Doug] Without Landsat we would not have 
the record\hwe have today,

54
00:05:14,732 --> 00:05:20,421
about deforestation, and changing\hagriculture 
across a vast and important biome.\h\h

55
00:05:21,355 --> 00:05:27,678
We anticipate the launch next year of Landsat 9,\h
which will carry on the legacy of this data record,\h\h

56
00:05:27,678 --> 00:05:33,450
allows us to go back in time, and understand\h
how our planet has changed over 40 years.

57
00:05:33,450 --> 00:05:37,338
[Music]