- Efforts to achieve NEC's environmental business vision
- A world first: New technology to eliminate the need for standby power in ICT equipment
- Plastic Made from Straw and Nut Shells
- Obayashi Corporation
- A bioplastic with a biomass ratio of more than 75%
- Optimizing Power and Space with ECO CENTER
- Observing Greenhouse Gases Around the Earth from Space
- Monitoring the forests from space
- High-Performance Workplaces
- e-Learning
Interview - "Daichi" Keeping an Eye on the Amazon Rainforest
Seventy percent of the Amazon, the world's largest tropical rainforest, lies within Brazil. According to the National Institute for Research in the Amazon (INPE), over the last 30 years the once five million square kilometer forest has lost some 660,000 square kilometers to illegal logging. We interviewed Dr. Humberto Navarro de Mesquita Jr., head of the Remote Sensing Center of Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA), which monitors the Amazon rainforest via satellite imagery.
Amazon Deforestation Up Due to Illegal Logging
Q:
What is the current state of the Amazon rainforest?
Dr. Mesquita:
The Amazon rainforest lies largely within Brazil and spans the borders of six neighboring countries. The area it encompasses in Brazil alone is about eleven times the size of Japan.
The volume of water that flows down the Amazon River accounts for 20% of the world's freshwater. The vast Amazon basin area provides a habitat for a variety of living species and is an immense reservoir of natural resources. Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest has been accelerating rapidly in recent years due to illegal logging and slash-and-burn agriculture. It has been reported that an area ten times the size of Tokyo is lost every year. These illegal activities are difficult to combat due to the vast size of the Amazon basin area.
It was against this backdrop that Brazilian Government implemented a forest satellite monitoring system in 1988 and has been waging an all-out battle to halt deforestation ever since.
Q:
What is the satellite forest monitoring system?
Dr. Mesquita:
The IBAMA Remote Sensing Center where I work plays an important role in monitoring the Amazon. We use a satellite data provided by National INPE and other organizations, like Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency（JAXA） and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to organize activities that track and control deforestation activities.
It is difficult to spot illegal logging sites with ground patrols alone, not only because the Amazon rainforest extends over such a vast area of land but also because illegal loggers are employing more and more sophisticated methods. We are unable to detect illegal logging activities occurring deep within the rainforest since they are concealed by the surrounding forest area that has been saved through conservation efforts. That's why we use satellite images to monitor the rainforest from the sky. Federal Police Department works together with IBAMA´s enforcement Law apply the Brazilian environmental regulations given by the law. INPE provide satellite data and a monitoring system, PRODES (Brazilian Amazonian Forest Monitoring by Satellite) program and more recently, the DETER (Real Time Deforestation Detection System) program was launched to give a faster response (twice a month). PRODES uses Landsat TM and Brazilian-Chinese CBERS data, while DETER is fed by the MODIS sensors onboard NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites. This is primarily how we aid in detecting deforestation.
These conventional satellite surveillance systems can provide us with satellite images of the Amazon either every 15 days or once a year.
Since the satellite sensors provide images seen through an optical lens, they do not capture a clear picture of the rainforest when there is significant cloud cover.
There are some areas of the rainforest that are covered by thick clouds throughout the year. Even though satellite images are taken every 15 days, some of the images cannot be used due to the heavy cloud cover. Sometimes we don't get any images of certain areas for years. This prevents us from monitoring changes in the Amazon rainforest on a real-time basis and slows down the process of detecting illegal logging.
Illegal loggers are aware of this weakness in the satellite monitoring system and often wait for the rainy season when the rainforest is covered by thick clouds to engage in criminal logging activities. It was vital to Amazon rainforest conservation that we solve this problem.
