Philip Fearnside

Philip Fearnside
Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia | inpa · Coordenação de Dinâmica Ambiental (CDAM)

Ph.D.

About

993
Publications
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Introduction
At the National Institute for Research in Amazonia (INPA), Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil since 1978. Publications and much more available at http://philip.inpa.gov.br
Additional affiliations
April 1978 - present
Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia
Description
  • See Lattes curriculum: http://buscatextual.cnpq.br/buscatextual/visualizacv.jsp?id=K4780291H9

Publications

Publications (993)
Chapter
The Amazon River is the longest river in the world flowing from the Peruvian Andes to the large Amazonian floodplain. The elevation gradient has a huge role in “pushing” waters from source to sink. It transports a huge amount of water (6.62 × 1012 L/year) to the ocean, and the eroded material from the basin (>1.0 × 109 t/year as particles and >270...
Cover Page
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Cover: A mosaic of grassland and savanna vegetation in the Cerrado in the Serra de São José, Tiradentes, Minas Gerais, Brazil. This vegetation is protected within an Environmental Protection Area. In a letter in this issue, Cássio Cardoso Pereira and colleagues argue that to keep more ecosystems like this standing throughout Brazil, stricter laws a...
Article
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Fearnside, P.M. 2024. Brazil’s race to approve the end of the Amazon: The BR-319 highway needs a new environmental impact assessment (commentary). Mongabay, 28 de setembro de 2024. https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/brazils-race-to-approve-the-end-of-the-amazon-forest-the-br-319-highway-project-needs-a-new-environmental-impact-assessment/
Article
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Fearnside, P.M. 2024. A corrida para aprovar o fim da floresta amazônica: o projeto da rodovia BR-319 precisa de um novo EIA. Amazônia Real, 24 de setembro de 2024. https://amazoniareal.com.br/o-projeto-da-rodovia-br-319-precisa-de-um-novo-eia/
Data
Forest plantations with tropical species lack allometric equations to estimate yield. This study aims to test allometric models for estimation of volume, biomass and carbon stock for stems of Schizolobium parahyba var.amazonicum, a species with great potential for using in homogene-ous stands. A plantation of S. parahybawas inventoried, rigorously...
Article
We argue that the lack of international financial assistance for the Cerrado is unacceptable and that creation of a fund to preserve this ecosystem is urgent. Brazil must also act, as the country is shooting itself in the foot by neglecting this ecosystem. The loss of the Cerrado will have repercussions on the stability of the Amazon, on neighborin...
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Extreme weather has made 2023 virtually certain to be the warmest year on record, signaling unprecedented climate and biodiversity crises. Brazil, the world’s most biodiverse country, with two hotspots and complex social and economic layers, has experienced escalating environmental degradation over the past years. Alarming rates of native vegetatio...
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Tradução de: Pezzuti, J.C.B., J. Zuanon, P.F.M. Lopes, C.C. Carneiro, A.O. Sawakuch, T.R. Montovanelli, A. Akama, C.C. Ribas, D. Juruna & P.M. Fearnside. 2024. Brazil’s Belo Monte license renewal and the need to recognize the immense impacts of dams in Amazonia. Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation 22(2): 112-117. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.peco...
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O fato de os oito países amazônicos se reunirem e discutirem o desmatamento é positivo, embora os resultados da reunião tenham sido decepcionantes. A declaração final [1] tem uma longa lista de boas intenções para respeitar os povos indígenas, reduzir os impactos ambientais e ajudar a evitar as mudanças climáticas, mas carece de compromissos especí...
Article
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Fearnside, P.M. 2024. Eliminação do Parque Cristalino II é séria ameaça à biodiversidade do Brasil. The Conversation, 01 de agosto de 2024. https://theconversation.com/eliminacao-do-parque-cristalino-ii-e-seria-ameaca-a-biodiversidade-do-brasil-235931
Article
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Será que outra presidência de Trump representaria um "game over" para a floresta amazônica e para o clima global? Pelo menos ainda há um ponto de interrogação no final da frase! O aquecimento global está muito perto de escapar ao controle humano, e as probabilidades de isso acontecer aumentariam significativamente se Donald Trump (Figura 1) ganhar...
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Fearnside, P.M. 2024. Brazil’s BR-319 Highway: The latest maneuver to obtain approval for an environmental disaster (commentary). Mongabay, 17 June 2024. https://news.mongabay.com/2024/06/brazils-br-319-highway-the-latest-maneuver-to-obtain-approval-for-an-environmental-disaster-commentary/
Article
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Fearnside, P.M. 2024. O relatório do GT BR-319 de DNIT: A mais recente manobra para obter aprovação para um desastre ambiental. Amazônia Real, 13 de junho de 2024. https://amazoniareal.com.br/o-relatorio-do-gt-br-319-de-dnit-a-mais-recente-manobra-para-obter-aprovacao-para-um-desastre-ambiental/
Article
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A inviabilidade econômica da BR-319 é mostrada pelas duas análises existentes. Um estudo por Leonardo Fleck [1] mostrou que os benefícios economicos seriam apenas um terço do custo previsto, mesmo ignorando o valor de muitos dos impactos ambientais, inclusive todos que não sejam ao longo da rodovia em si, além de todos os impactos sociais. Consider...
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Both global climate and the Amazon Forest are near tipping points beyond which irreversible processes would lead to unprecedented catastrophes. A second Trump presidency would both boost greenhouse gas emissions and would risk a critical delay in global efforts to avert a runaway greenhouse. • The various interrelated tipping points represent thres...
Article
Proposed oil extraction in the Amazon River estuary raises significant concerns among environmentalists and scientists due to the environmental risks associated with this activity. Beyond oil pollution-associated risks, multiple classes of pollutants are threatening Brazilian ecosystems. In this Letter, we draw attention to this environmental issue...
Preprint
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Brazil holds the largest portion of the Amazon rainforest, which, in addition to its enormous biodiversity and vital role regulating local and global climate, is home to a great diversity of traditional communities and Indigenous peoples. Between August 2020 and July 2021, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon reached its highest rate in a decade,...
Cover Page
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Cover: A pasture photographed in Lapinha da Serra, Santana do Riacho, Minas Gerais, Brazil. In a Viewpoint in this issue, Cássio Cardoso Pereira and colleagues argue that efforts to increase carbon sequestration by planting trees in such pastures constitutes a common but serious mistake, because such planting would fail to restore the pasture its n...
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Lula’s presidency in Brazil offers great hope for the environment but plans for hydroelectric dams in Amazonia represent an area of concern. The Belo Monte hydroelectric power plant that Lula promoted in his previous administrations and still defends illustrates the contradictions. In 2015 Belo Monte diverted water from the Xingu River through a ca...
Article
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Tradução de: Brazil’s Belo Monte license renewal and the need to recognize the immense impacts of dams in Amazonia. Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pecon.2024.05.001 [open access]
Article
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Em 31 de março de 2024, o 60º aniversário do golpe que instalou a ditadura militar no Brasil de 1964-1985 estimulou a reflexão sobre essa era sombria e suas consequências hoje, apesar do presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ter proibido agências do governo federal de realizar quaisquer eventos oficiais para esse fim [1]. O gesto de Lula para obter...
Article
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The focus on removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere reflects increased public attention to climate change that potentially comes at the expense of other biodiversity challenges. This asymmetry between environmental agendas harms not only biodiversity but also climate-change mitigation because environmental issues are inexorably intertwined. Cl...
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Wood basic density (WD) plays a crucial role in estimating forest biomass; moreover, improving wood-density estimates is needed to reduce uncertainties in the estimates of tropical forest biomass and carbon stocks. Understanding variations in this density along the tree trunk and its impact on biomass estimates is underexplored in the literature. I...
Conference Paper
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The Amazon Rainforest, crucial for climate regulation, carbon and water cycles, and biodiversity preservation, faces escalating threats from heightened forest degradation, including disturbances from fire and logging. In 2020, Brazil was responsible for a concerning 70% of the active fire hotspots detected in the Amazon, signaling a notable 60% inc...
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Tropical forest management has a potential role in forest conservation if it is sustainable. This study of a forest under management in Bolivian Amazonia strongly suggests that the management project is not sustainable and that no potential changes in management would be likely to make it so. In a 216.41 ha harvested area, 278 commercial trees from...
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Brazil is among the main contributors to global biodiversity, which, in turn, provides extensive ecosystem services. Agriculture is an activity that benefits greatly from these ecosystem services, but at the same time is degrading aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems and eroding Brazilian biodiversity. This conflict is growing, as emerging unsustaina...
Article
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Los nuevos acuerdos y los avances mundiales en la conservación del medio ambiente contribuyan para que se crea una conciencia ambiental. Pero, esto no es suficiente para la conservación de los recursos, debido a la sobredemanda de la sociedad y la reducción de la capacidad de resiliencia del medio ambiente, generando pérdidas inmutables y ni siquie...
Conference Paper
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Anthropogenic disturbances stand as the primary driver of degradation in the remaining Amazon forests, posing a significant threat to their future. Notable among these disturbances are edge effects, timber extraction, fire, extreme droughts and temperatures, which have been intensified by human-induced climate change. A pilot study aiming to integr...
Article
In recent years, the loss of forest in the Brazilian Amazon has taken on alarming proportions, with 2021 recording the largest increase in 13 years, particularly in the Abunã-Madeira Sustainable Development Reserve (SDR). This has significant environmental, social, and economic repercussions globally and for the local communities reliant on the for...
Article
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Dry forests are one of the most threatened ecosystems in the world, and they are poorly protected. The semiarid region of northeastern Brazil is the largest area in the New World with a predominance of dry forests, although it has been estimated that half of Brazil’s original semiarid vegetation has already been removed. This study assesses the ext...
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Azevedo-Santos, V.M., V.S. Daga, L.H. Tonella, R. Ruaro, M.S. Arcifa, P.M. Fearnside & T. Giarrizzo. 2024. Os ecossistemas urbanos do Brasil ameaçados por lei- Amazônia Real,
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Fearnside, P.M. & R.A. Silva. 2023. A seca na Amazônia em 2023 indica um futuro desastroso para a floresta tropical e seu povo. The Conversation, 06 de novembro de 2023. https://theconversation.com/a-seca-na-amazonia-em-2023-indica-um-futuro-desastroso-para-a-floresta-tropical-e-seu-povo-216794
Article
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Fearnside, P.M. 2023. Race to destroy the Amazon forest: Brazil’s National Congress set to force construction of Highway BR-319 (commentary). Mongabay, 20 December 2023. https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/race-to-destroy-the-amazon-forest-brazils-national-congress-set-to-force-construction-of-highway-br-319-commentary/
Article
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Fearnside, P.M. 2023. O que o Brasil deveria ter dito na COP28, mas não disse. Amazônia Real, 05 de dezembro de 2023. https://amazoniareal.com.br/o-que-o-brasil-deveria-ter-dito-na-cop28-mas-nao-disse/
Article
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Este é um momento crítico com relação à obra mais danosa da Amazônia. Na segunda-feira, 18 de dezembro, entrou na pauta do plenário da Câmara dos Deputados, em regime de urgência, o PL 4994/2023 [1, 2]. O PL declara a rodovia BR-319 (Manaus-Porto Velho) como "infraestrutura crítica, indispensável à segurança nacional" e exige que a obra seja licenc...
Conference Paper
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O estudo destaca a importância crítica da vegetação na Amazônia para a estabilidade climática, mas ressalta os impactos severos do desmatamento, especialmente nas atividades agrícolas, queimadas e infraestrutura. A região sudoeste da Amazônia enfrenta uma vulnerabilidade significativa à perda de serviços ecossistêmicos. Modelos espacialmente explíc...
Article
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Fires affect the Amazon rainforest and cause various socio-environmental problems. Analyses of forest fire dynamics supporting actions to combat and prevent forest fires. However, many studies have reported discrepancies in the quantification of fire, especially in the tropics. We evaluated four operational products for estimating burned areas (MAP...
Article
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Frog population declines have already been observed in the central Amazon even for common species that are considered not to be in danger of extinction. The Amazon is close to its limit of tolerated deforestation, and parts of the forest have already been modified by climate change, which raises questions about how the fauna in these areas would ad...
Article
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The intensification of extreme climate events is already a reality throughout the world. In the Brazilian Amazon, the most frequent extreme events are linked to droughts and floods. This study expanded the documentation on extreme events of floods, water crisis, fires and forest fires in the state of Acre, in the southwestern Brazilian Amazon. We a...
Article
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The climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis are intertwined. Climate change can accelerate biodiversity loss, and the associated ecosystem degradation undermines ecosystem resilience and reduces climate change mitigation by reducing carbon sequestration. However, because decision-makers and the public devote more attention to climate change, the...
Article
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Em 15 de maio de 2023 publicamos um artigo na revista científica Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities com o título "Crise de oxigênio na Amazônia brasileira: Como vidas e saúde foram sacrificadas durante o pico da COVID-19 para promover uma agenda com consequências de longo prazo para o meio ambiente, os povos indígenas e a saúde", dispo...
Article
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O estudo teve como objetivo principal apresentar um panorama de ocorrências de queimadas em área de uso antrópico na região Centro Sul do Estado de Roraima considerando os meses de janeiro, fevereiro e 20 dias do mês de março do ano de 2023. Nesse caso o estudo se baseou em duas imagens Sentinel-2 do dia 21 de março de 2023 abrangendo uma área de 2...
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Picos de fumaça em Manaus não podem ser atribuídos às queimadas do Pará, como afirma o governo do Amazonas Por Amazônia Real Publicado em: 14/11/2023 às 18:41 Por Lucas Ferrante e Philip M. Fearnside O governador do estado do Amazonas, Wilson Lima [1] e o Secretário do Meio Ambiente, Eduardo Taveira [2], afirmaram que a fumaça que assola Manaus não...
Chapter
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A iniciativa Diálogos entre Saberes por uma Amazônia que Queremos oferece uma oportunidade única de disseminar as mensagens principais do Relatório para um público mais amplo através de uma linguagem mais acessível. Nesta iniciativa, SPA & Bori e a Nexo Políticas Públicas uniram suas habilidades em ciência e comunicação para amplificar a ciência so...
Preprint
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INTRODUCTION Post-deforestation landscape management in the Brazilian Amazon is still carried out with the frequent use of fire, both by family farmers and ranchers (e.g., BARONA et al., 2020). This management system can be considered low financial cost and low technological input. However, they annually cause enormous losses to the forest due to f...
Article
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The scenario of deforestation in the Amazon may change with the reconstruction of Highway BR-319, a long-distance road that will expand the region’s agricultural frontier towards the north and west of the Western Amazon, stretches that until then have extensive areas of primary forest due to the hard access. We simulate the deforestation that would...
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Medidas não farmacológicas, como o confinamento social, têm desempenhado um papel importante na contenção da pandemia de COVID-19 em todo o mundo, especialmente antes da disponibilidade de vacinas. O término antecipado dessas medidas sempre trouxe o risco de um novo ressurgimento de casos [1]. O Brasil teve um dos piores registros do mundo no manej...
Article
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The summit of the eight Amazon countries held in Belém produced many statements of good intentions but no concrete commitments. • No agreement was reached either on ending oil extraction in the Amazon or on ending deforestation, not even only "illegal" deforestation. • Urgent but politically difficult topics were not discussed, such as foregoing pl...
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Our motivation for writing this editorial is to alert the academic community about the risks of predatory publishing in Biology. By piggy-backing on the open access (OA) movement and taking advantage of the "publish or perish" culture in a system that prioritises quantity over quality, predatory publishing has grown exponentially in recent years an...
Article
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Desmatamento em terras públicas não destinadas. Amazônia Real, Série completa
Article
For more than three decades, major efforts in sampling and analyzing tree diversity in South America have focused almost exclusively on trees with stems of at least 10 and 2.5 cm diameter, showing highest species diversity in the wetter western and northern Amazon forests. By contrast, little attention has been paid to patterns and drivers of diver...
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Citation: Costa, J.G.; Fearnside, P.M.; Oliveira, I.; Anderson, L.O.; de Aragão, L.E.O.e.C.; Almeida, M.R.N.; Clemente, F.S.; Nascimento, E.d.S.; Souza, G.d.C.; Karlokoski, A.; et al. Abstract: Amazonian biodiversity has been used for generations by human populations, especially by Indigenous peoples and traditional communities in their cultural, s...
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Brazil’s federal Law 12,651/2012 (popularly known as the “Forest Code”) requires “Permanent Preservation Areas”, known as “APPs”, which are strips of protected vegetation along the edges of watercourses. The widths of the strips vary, depending on the width of the watercourse, and the law applies to both rural and urban aquatic ecosystems. However,...
Article
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Every activity that involves exploitation of natural resources, such as fishing, needs to be organized and conducted based on information from monitoring programs to allow continuous evaluation. With the increasing fishing pressure in Brazil, the understanding of the importance of fisheries monitoring programs and how they can inform and assist in...
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When Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (‘Lula’) took office as Brazil’s president in January 2023, he initiated a series of measures to reverse the damage that his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, had done to Amazonia’s environment and indigenous peoples and to the Brazilian government’s agencies and policies that affect them. Lula faces challenges both from t...
Conference Paper
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Deforestation patterns and trajectories provide information that allows an understanding of occupation processes and the dynamics of deforestation in the Amazon. This understanding is needed for development of public policies to contain the advance of the deforestation frontier. We analyzed deforestation patterns and trajectories up to 2021 in Lábr...
Article
In January 2021, oxygen supplies in the Amazon region's largest city were allowed to run out at the peak of the second wave of the COVID-19 epidemic, shocking the world as hospital patients expired for lack of this basic medical resource in Manaus, which during the first COVID-19 wave had become the world's first city to bury its dead in mass grave...
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e 6 Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, Estrada Dr. Altino Bondensan, 500, Eugênio de Melo, São José dos Campos-SP, cep 12247-016; fabiano.morelli@inpe.br RESUMO A detecção e mapeamento de queimadas e incêndios florestais tem registrados grandes avanços nos últimos anos. Os focos de fogo ativo ainda são a mais importante fonte para identific...
Article
Tendentious projections about COVID-19 in Brazil provided an appealing excuse for individuals and decision-makers to justify poor choices during a critical phase of the pandemic. The erroneous results likely contributed to premature resumption of in-person school classes and easing of restrictions on social contact, favoring the resurgence of COVID...
Conference Paper
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Yanai, A.M., L.G. Ziccardi, P.M.L.A. Graça, M.I.S. Escada & P.M. Fearnside. 2023. Preditores do desmatamento em imóveis rurais em uma fronteira agropecuária na Amazônia: O caso do distrito de Santo Antônio do Matupi, Sul do Amazonas. XX Simpósio Brasileiro de Sensoriamento Remoto (SBSR), 2 a 5 de abril de 2023, Florianópolis, SC. Vol. 20:2335-2338....
Conference Paper
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RESUMO As mudanças do uso e ocupação da terra proporcionam diversas alterações na paisagem. A fragmentação florestal, que induz o crescimento das bordas e a perda da cobertura florestal, tem servido como um fator para o avanço das áreas queimadas no sudoeste da Amazônia. O objetivo desse trabalho foi analisar o papel da fragmentação florestal na oc...
Conference Paper
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RESUMO Boca do Acre constitui uma nova fronteira de expansão madeireira, ocupando o quarto lugar no estado do Amazonas áreas de exploradas. O objetivo deste estudo foi analisar a evolução da atividade madeireira e do desmatamento no período de 2007 a 2019 em Boca do Acre. Para isso, utilizamos a imagem-fração solo obtida pelo Modelo Linear de Mistu...
Article
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Em 25 de agosto publicamos um trabalho intitulado "Soberania e a reversão da história brasileira de destruição da Amazônia" na prestigiada revista Land Use Policy [1]. Até 14 de outubro o trabalho original estará de livre acesso aqui, e depois estará disponível aqui. Esta série traz o conteúdo em língua portuguesa: 2 Os brasileiros viveram durante...