Indigenous Territories: key to protect Amazon forests

The first collection of maps produced by RAISG exposes the importance of Indigenous Territories in the preservation of forests, which are much more effective than Protected Natural Areas, since, in 18 years, they only reduced the forest by 0.06%.

How have soil coverings in the Amazon changed over the last 18 years? This is the question that was solved by six organizations of the Amazon Biome, which used a unified methodology and the latest technology of artificial intelligence and cloud processing delivered a report of what is happening in each country.

The outlook for Colombia, analyzed by Gaia Amazonas, shows the situation in the 207 Indigenous Territories covering 55.43% of the Amazon, as well as in the 40 Protected Natural Areas that cover 26.54%.

The study, carried out with NASA’s Landsat satellite images and processed in the pixel-to-pixel cloud using Google Earth Engine technology, reveals the transformation of forests year after year. The results show that the loss of forest cover in Indigenous Territories is much lower than in Protected Areas.

As explained by Andres Llanos, GIS Advisor of Gaia Amazonas, in 18 years, the 207 Indigenous Territories reduced their forests by 31,0000 ha, corresponding only to 0.06%, versus 2% of forest loss in the entire Colombian Amazon. This figure shows that they are the best strategy to protect our forests.

The territories that presented the greatest loss of forest cover are the Resguardo Nukak-Makú and Predio Putumayo, as follows:

Indigenous Territories with the greatest loss of forest:

1.     Nukak-Makú (8.175 ha)

2.     Predio Putumayo (8.007 ha)

3.     Alto Unuma (3.913 ha)

4.     Vaupés (3.320 ha)

5.     Monochoa (3.265 ha)

6.     Yaigojé-río Apaporis (2.177 ha)

7.     Mirití Paraná (1.919 ha)

8.     Llanos del Yarí – Yaguará II (1.629 ha)

In contrast, the Río Atabapo e Inírida are among the ten Indigenous Territories with the largest increase in forests;

Indigenous Territories with the largest increase in forest:

1.     Río Atabapo e Inírida (8.736 ha)

2.     Cuenca media alta del río Inírida (3.220 ha)

3.     Remanso Chorro Bocón (1.545 ha)

4.     El venado (939 ha)

5.   Arara Bacatí Caruru y Miraflores  (566 ha)    

On the other hand, in Natural Protected Areas, the loss of forests reaches up to 22,000 hectares, a worrying situation for this conservation model. The study also reveals that the Protected Areas with the largest forest decline coincide with the areas in which the area devoted to agriculture and pastures for livestock was increased.

Protected areas with the greatest loss of forest:

1.     Natural National Park Tinigua (22. 546 ha)

2.     Natural National Park Sierra de la Macarena (12.440 ha)

3.     Natural National Park Cordillera de los Picachos (9.993 ha)

Protected Areas with greater agricultural or grassland gain:

1.     Natural National Park Tinigua (22. 352 ha)

2.     Natural National Park Sierra de la Macarena (13.074 ha)

3.     Natural National Park Cordillera de los Picachos (10.083 ha)

The information is available on http://amazonia.mapbiomas.org platform. Here the general public can visualize the maps at the level of the Amazon region, and filter it by Protected Areas, Indigenous Territories, reaching even the level of department, region or state.