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Event Title: Seminar on Utilization of SAR Data for Conservation of Amazon Tropical Forest
Date: Friday, June 7, 2024
Organized by: Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama), JICA
Location: Ibama Auditorium, Brasilia, Brazil
Main Participants
Ibama, Brazilian Ministry of Environment, Brazilian Federal Police, Brazilian National Space Research Institute, Brazilian Forest Service, Sico Mendes Biodiversity Conservation Institute, Amazon Conservation System Operational Management System, Embassy of Japan in Brazil, JICA Brazil Office, etc.
Background and Objectives
The technical cooperation project “Improving Illegal Logging Management in the Brazilian Amazon using Advanced Radar Satellite and AI Technologies (Project-MORI)” aims to strengthen the capacity of the Brazilian legal Amazon (nine states with tropical Amazonian forests) to combat and manage illegal logging through detection and prediction of deforestation using radar satellites and AI technologies, with the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama) as a counterpart. The project aims to strengthen the capacity of the Brazilian legal Amazon (nine states with tropical forests) to combat and manage illegal logging through the detection and prediction of deforestation using radar satellites and AI technology, with the Brazilian Environment and Renewable Natural Resources Agency (Ibama) as a counterpart.
Remote sensing technology using earth observation satellites is essential for monitoring the vast Amazon tropical forest. However, the Amazon region is covered with clouds during the rainy season, which lasts for about half of the year, and even during the dry season there are many clouds, making it difficult to conduct regular monitoring using only optical satellites. SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellites, on the other hand, generate images and data by emitting electromagnetic waves toward the earth’s surface and receiving the reflected waves. Since these electromagnetic waves can penetrate clouds and fog, they can observe the earth’s surface day and night, regardless of weather conditions, and have great potential for monitoring the Amazon forest.
This seminar was held for Brazilian government agencies that are using or considering using SAR satellites for tropical forest conservation in the Amazon to share information and exchange views on the current status, issues, and future prospects of SAR data utilization.
Contents
The seminar was attended by approximately 60 participants, including government-related organizations involved in monitoring and enforcement in the legal Amazon, the Japanese Embassy, and the JICA office.
After opening remarks by the Minister of the Embassy of Japan and President Ibama, the project’s long-term experts introduced the project and JAXA’s short-term experts presented examples of the use of Japanese SAR radar satellites for forest conservation. which is scheduled to be launched on June 30, was also introduced in the presentation. In the afternoon session, the project counterpart, Cenima (Center for Environmental Monitoring and Information) of Ibama, presented the “JICA-JAXA Tropical Forest Early Warning System (JJEED),” a quasi-real-time monitoring system for deforestation using observation data from the Daichi-2 (ALOS-2), which is being used in the project. Early Warning System (JJ-FAST)” and the mutual utilization of existing Brazilian satellite data, followed by a presentation by the Brazilian Federal Police, the Brazilian National Space Research Institute, the Brazilian Forest Service, and the Amazon Protection System Operation and Management System on the use of SAR data in their respective institutions. The latter half of the session was a discussion part. In the discussion part of the latter half of the session, representatives from each organization served as panelists and engaged in a lively exchange of opinions with the audience on how SAR data could be used more effectively to achieve the government’s goal of eliminating illegal deforestation.
Prior to the seminar, on June 5 and 6, a workshop on the technical structure of SAR data and methods of analyzing SAR data was held for 16 environmental analysts from Ibama’s legal Amazonian states, led by a short-term expert from JAXA. At this workshop, participants asked questions such as “How can we improve the consistency between Japanese satellite radar and existing Brazilian satellite data?” and “How can we detect deforestation selectively? The participants asked a variety of questions and expressed their opinions on the ALOS-4 specifications.
The three-day workshop and seminar was highly anticipated to lead to future technological improvements in illegal deforestation detection through the use of satellite data in the states of the legal Amazon.
Scenes from the seminar on June 7 Scenes from the first day of the workshop on June 5
© Source JICA
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