Efforts to preserve the Amazon rain forest, which supports immense biodiversity and locks away tons of climate threatening carbon, are growing more urgent as the ecosystem's destruction accelerates. Indigenous (当地的) peoples have been trying to protect the region by patrolling(巡逻) their territorial boundaries for illegal activities. But rapid deforestation continues.
A recent study shows that combining on-the-ground monitoring with satellite data and smartphone technology could help put the brakes on Amazon deforestation—and potentially that of forests elsewhere.
Illegal logging, agriculture and coca cultivation particularly threaten the Amazon in the Peruvian Indigenous communities and outsiders are often the culprits (罪魁祸首). The research team wondered if providing training for local people to use satellite-based "early deforestation alerts" could help. The scientists collaborated with 76 Indigenous communities, 36 of which participated in using these alerts to watch over the forest. Over the next two years these trained participants were paid to work as forest monitors and received monthly alerts via the app when satellite data indicated local forest losses. Monitors investigated alerts, patrolled for deforestation in other areas and reported confirmed losses back to their communities, which decided whether to deal with the culprits on their own or inform state authorities.
The researchers analyzed the same forest-loss satellite data from the given time period in all 76 communities. They found the early-alert program reduced forest loss by 8.4 hectares in the first two year—a 52% reduction compared with the average loss in the control communities.
Experts say this approach to tackling Amazonian deforestation looks promising. "Would this work in all communities that have high risk of deforestation? Given the results, it's worth a try." says Catherine Tucker, a researcher at the University of Florida. "But some communities may not have access to the resources needed for such a program, or their territories may hold valuable minerals that would increase the risk of deforestation by outsiders despite monitoring efforts," wrote Francisco Hernandez Cayetano, a community member involved in the research, "we as Indigenous peoples ask the world for support."