Our Contributions

Imazon completes 31 years promoting sustainable development in the Amazon.

Check out some contributions from the Institute:

  1. Studies by Imazon in the forest management and ecology areas ​​served as the basis for establishing a forest management system aimed at companies and traditional communities. At the end of 2016, the area managed in the Amazon already exceeded 7 million hectares, of which more than half held the green seal of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
  2. A study published in 2000 on the dynamics of Boom-Colapso, in partnership with the World Bank, served as a reference for elaborating public policies to combat deforestation and the creation of Conservation Units (UCs) in the Amazon.
  3. Research from Imazon on the ecology of mahogany, the most valuable species of tropical wood, was essential for its inclusion in the list of threatened species of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (Cites) in 2003.
  4. Technical studies and public policy initiatives led by Imazon had direct impact on the creation of 25 million hectares of UCs in the Amazon, of which 12.8 million hectares in the region of Calha Norte do Pará.
  5. Studies on forestry policy and economics contributed decisively to the drafting of the new Public Forest Management Law in Brazil in 2006, whose main objective is to promote these forests’ sustainable use.
  6. In 2006, Imazon developed the Deforestation Alert System (SAD) to monthly monitor and widely disseminate the deforestation situation in the Amazon.
  7. As of 2007, Imazon entered into an unprecedented partnership with MPF (Federal Public Ministry) and MPE (State Public Ministry) to monitor the occurrence of illegal deforestation over Protected Areas (UCs and Indigenous Lands) in the States of Pará, Mato Grosso, Amapá and Roraima. As a result, Imazon received the Chico Mendes Award in 2010.
  8. Studies carried out by Imazon on public credit contributed to the resolution of the National Monetary Council (CMN) in 2008, which requires environmental and land regularity for granting new credits in the Amazon region for properties over 400 hectares.
  9. Studies by the Institute on the land area of ​​the Amazon became a reference and contributed to the regularization of land as a priority for federal government since 2008.
  10. Imazon’s research on community forest management served as a basis for the definition of the national policy for community and family forest management in the Amazon.
  11. Imazon’s studies on environmental crimes law contributed to improving strategies to combat deforestation. Among them, changes to speed up the donation of seized goods and disseminating the list of embargoed properties.
  12. In 2008, Imazon developed the Logging Monitoring System (Simex), a pioneering system for detecting and evaluating the effectiveness and quality of forest management plans for logging using satellite images in the Amazon.
  13. Imazon was one of the partner institutions of the Green Municipalities Project (PMV) in Paragominas. This initiative resulted in a drastic reduction in deforestation and a significant increase in the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR). Besides, the Institute helped other municipalities in Pará to leave the Ministry of the Environment’s (MMA) critical deforestation list.
  14. Imazon was one of the key institutions in the “Open Letter from Brazilian Companies” initiative in favor of a climate agreement at the Climate Conference in Copenhagen in 2009 (COP-15). This initiative was recognized by the Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) as one of the most important in the preparatory phase for COP-15.
  15. The leaders of the Imazon forest transparency initiative (Carlos Souza Jr. and Beto Veríssimo) received the global social entrepreneurship award from the Skoll Foundation (USA) in 2010.
  16. In 2010, Imazon entered into partnership with Google to develop its deforestation monitoring system on the Earth Engine (EE) platform. The SAD-EE will be used to monitor deforestation in other tropical countries.
  17. In 2011, Imazon supported the conception and implementation of the PMV of the State of Pará, which brings together 105 municipalities out of 144 existing in Pará (1 million square kilometers) and benefits a population of more than 5 million people.
  18. Imazon technically contributed to the proposal for Zero Net Deforestation (DLZ) by 2020 announced by the Government of Pará at the Rio + 20 Conference in 2012.
  19. Imazon was one of the institutions leading the elaboration of the first deforestation map for all the Amazonian countries (Panamazônia) for the years 2000, 2005 and 2010. This occurred within the partnership’s scope with the Amazon Network of Georeferenced Social and Environmental Information (Raisg).
  20. Imazon was a pioneer in monitoring deforestation in agrarian reform settlements in the Amazon. This work contributed to creating the Green Settlements Program of the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra) in 2012.
  21. Imazon assisted the MPF in elaborating the Conduct Adjustment Term (TAC) for livestock in Pará. This TAC was fundamental for significant increase in the CAR, which went from just 400 in 2009 to more than 170 thousand in 2016.
  22. Imazon participated in elaborating the System for Estimating Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Brazil (Seeg [1]), the first initiative of its kind in the hemisphere. The Institute was responsible for updating the emission estimates for land use change sectors for all Brazil biomes.
  23. The Institute was a partner of the World Resources Institute (WRI) in the construction of Global Forest Watch (GFW), an online monitoring and alerting platform that, for the first time, allowed access to satellite images, deforestation maps and crowdsourcing to guarantee access real-time information about the world’s forests.
  24. In 2014, Imazon published a report on social progress in the Brazilian Amazon, the first report based on the Social Progress Index (IPS) on a subnational scale in the world.
  25. Imazon played a key role in the design and support for the implementation of Pará’s List of Illegal Deforestation (LDI).
  26. Imazon contributed to the elaboration and implementation of the Sustainable Territories Program in Oriximiná, Terra Santa and Faro (Calha Norte do Pará), municipalities that together form a territory exceeding 120 thousand square kilometers. territoriossustentaveis.org.br
  27. Imazon played a key role in the design and development of the MapBiomas network [1], whose objective is to carry out the annual mapping of land cover and use in Brazil.
  28. Imazon was responsible for preparing the Integrated Environmental Management System (Sigam), an electronic system developed to assist the decentralization of municipal environmental management and to support environmental licensing.
  29. In 2018, Imazon received the Best NGOs Award 2018, with the title of best NGO in the North Region, by the Instituto Doar and by the Filantropia Network, in a ceremony held at the Museum of Modern Art of Ibirapuera Park, in São Paulo.
  30. Four years after the first publication, in 2018 Imazon published the second report on social progress in the Brazilian Amazon. IPS Amazônia 2018 holistically measures the social and environmental performance of Amazonian territories.