About Forest Transparency

The objective of this project is to contribute towards reducing illegal deforestation in the Amazon through independent monitoring of deforestation (mainly using SAD), to broadly disseminate the results to key actors and to use this information to guide actions for assigning legal responsibility to lawbreakers. SAD is a system capable of generating deforestation and statistical maps on a monthly basis using MODIS sensor images.The system has contributed towards guiding enforcement actions, while at the same time allowing monthly follow-up of deforestation tendencies. In 2008, the project, which already operated for the states of Mato Grosso and Pará, expanded its coverage to the entire Legal Amazon.

All of this information has been disseminated in monthly bulletins with wide repercussions in the regional and national media. In addition, the maps generated are made available for interactive consultations at the Imazon portal for geographic information, ImazonGeo 2.0 ( www.imazongeo.org.br ).

To increase efficiency in assigning liability to environmental violators, the program carries out a series of activities related to environmental law, including: analysis of the performance of administrative and judicial proceedings against environmental crimes; promotion of transparency regarding the situation of environmental proceedings against environmental infractions in Protected Areas in the Amazon; dissemination of the results to law professionals (prosecutors, attorneys general, police chiefs, judges, environmental analysts), members of the legislative branch and civil society; and analysis of the performance of policies for combating illegal deforestation considering factors of environmental policy (i.e. enforcement and levying fines) and the market (i.e. prices for agricultural products).