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   PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   May 4, 2022 - Deforestation around Xingu National Park in Brazil   
      
      Deforestation around Xingu National Park in Brazil   
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      The state of Mato Grosso sits deep in the Amazon interior of Brazil.   
      Once covered with verdant green rainforest and isolated, the incursion   
      of railroads, highways, and airplanes eventually connected Mato Grosso   
      to the outside world. By the early twenty-first century, widespread   
      change was evident across all of the state, as well as much of South   
      America’s rainforest. Widespread deforestation had become rampant.   
      
      As early as the 1960’s the Brazilian government had the foresight to   
      create some protected areas in the rainforest. A notable achievement   
      was the creation of Xingu National Park and Indigenous Peoples   
      Preserve, an expanse of about 8,530 square miles (22,090 square km) in   
      the northeastern part of Mato Grosso. With the land centered on the   
      Xingu River, the park was set aside to preserve biodiversity as well as   
      to allow a traditional life for the four major aboriginal language   
      families in Brazil, the Tupi, Arawak, Carib, and Ge. The ecology of the   
      Xingu reflects a transitional zone between the vegetation of the   
      cerrado (tropical savannah) and the Amazonian rainforest. It is one of   
      the last remaining stand of rainforest in northern Mato Grosso to this   
      day.   
      
      The 1990s and 2000s saw what has been called “open season on the   
      rainforest”, with ranchers, soy farmers, land speculators, loggers and   
      miners able to clear just about any land that they wanted. During that   
      time, Brazilian rainforest was sometimes losing more than 20,000 square   
      kilometers (8,000 square miles) per year, an area nearly the size of   
      New Jersey. As the ransacking of the Amazon became widely known—thanks   
      at least in part due to satellite imagery of the demise of the “lungs   
      of the world” becoming widely shared with the public—public pressure   
      started to slow the tide of deforestation. In 2004, the Brazilian   
      government adopted an aggressive policy called the Action Plan for the   
      Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon (PPCDAm).   
      The government created a large network of national and state parks,   
      established protected territories for indigenous groups, strengthened   
      environmental enforcement agencies, made it more difficult to export   
      goods produced on illegally deforested land, and strengthened satellite   
      monitoring systems.   
      
      Thanks to the laws, enforcement efforts, public pressure, education,   
      and rigorous monitoring for deforestation in near-real-time by several   
      satellite systems, by 2012, forest clearing was still occurring, but at   
      a much lower rate. Clearing was reported to be down nearly 80 percent,   
      or roughly 5,000 square kilometers (1,900 square miles) per year. The   
      turnaround was heralded as one of the world’s most dramatic   
      environmental success stories. Soon, the type of deforestation also   
      changed. Because large clear-cuts were easily seen by satellite (and   
      then stopped by law enforcement), most of those encroaching on the   
      forest started to clear small patches instead of vast swaths and often   
      worked during the rainy season, when cloud cover obscured satellite   
      views.   
      
      A major policy change in Brazil occurred in 2019, when the current   
      President, Jair Bolsonaro, took office. Since that time, environmental   
      restrictions have been softened or ignored, leading to increasingly   
      rapid deforestation across all of Brazil. A report published by   
      Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) in November 2021   
      estimated that 13,235 square kilometers (8,224 square miles) of forest   
      was lost between August 2020 and July 2021. That was a 22% increase   
      from the previous year and the largest area lost to deforestation in   
      the Brazilian Amazon since 2006, when a total area of 14,286 square   
      kilometers was cleared. In January 2022, the INPE data showed that 430   
      square km (166 square miles) of the Amazon were cleared in that month   
      alone—an all-time monthly high.   
      
      On May 2, 2022, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer   
      (MODIS) acquired a true-color image of heavy deforestation around the   
      Xingu National Park and Indigenous Peoples Preserve. The remaining   
      forest within the Park appears dark green while areas stripped of   
      forest, which encircle the Park, appear light green. While the bulk of   
      the Park remains mostly intact, many reports of incursions of industry   
      and agriculture into park boundaries exist and seem to be increasing.   
      
      To better illustrate the landcover change, the below roll-over   
      comparison, which was created using the NASA Worldview App, allows easy   
      evaluation of the same area over time. In this case, the image acquired   
      on May 2, 2022 (above) can be compared to an earlier image acquired on   
      April 28, 2003. In the earlier image, the deep green forest stretches   
      covers much more of the area. By 2022, severe deforestation has   
      stripped much of the region of trees, especially in the land adjacent   
      to the southwestern section of Xingu National Park.   
      
      To interact with the roll-over comparision, click anywhere on the image   
      below. The older (2003) image will be on the left side of the screen   
      and the newest one (2022) will be on the right. To go to a larger view   
      of the region via the NASA Worldview App, click on the icon in the   
      upper right of the lower image.   
      
      IFRAME:   
       https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?v=-57.04275351461797,-13.7161   
      54695408484,-49.00672297895534,-9.854395576881721&l=Reference_Labels_15   
      m(hidden),Reference_Features_15m(hidden),Coastlines_15m(hidden),VIIRS_N   
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      _Thermal_Anomalies_Day(hidden),MODIS_Combined_Thermal_Anomalies_All(hid   
      den),VIIRS_NOAA20_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor(hidden),VIIRS_SNPP_Cor   
      rectedReflectance_TrueColor(hidden),MODIS_Aqua_CorrectedReflectance_Tru   
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      alse&cv=46&t=2022-05-02-T14%3A02%3A09Z&t1=2003-04-28-T14%3A02%3A09Z&em=   
      true   
      
      Image Facts   
      Satellite:  Terra   
      Date Acquired: 5/2/2022   
      Resolutions:  1km (337.3 KB),  500m (875.6 KB),  250m (514.2   
      KB)   
      Bands Used: 1,4,3   
      Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC   
      
      
      
   https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2022-05-04   
       
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