Instead of trying to repair the damage that has occurred, they want to prevent future damage. Amazonan environmental non-profit organization in Brazil, developed PrevisAI: an AI-powered tool that makes it possible to predict the next places of deforestation in the Amazon.
Destruction in the Brazilian Amazon is approaching an all-time high. According to Imazon’s Deforestation Alert System (SAD), logging tripled in March this year compared to the same month in 2022. In the first quarter of 2023 alone, 867 square kilometers of tropical forest were destroyed, the second largest area deforested in the last 16 years.
The idea for PrevisAI came in 2016. The Imazon team was frustrated with existing prediction models: These systems were meant to issue long-term alerts, looking at what would eventually happen in decades. The notifications came after large tracts of forest had already been cleared.
“We needed a new tool that could stay ahead of the devastation,” Carlos Souza Jr., project coordinator for PrevisAI and SAD, told Guardian. So Sousa Jr., along with a team of computer engineers, geostatisticians, and other researchers, got to work.
How does the AI that cares for the Amazon work?
The PrevisAI model started from a double approach. First, the analysis of trends in the region, observing historical and geostatistical data on deforestation in the Amazon. When the already logged areas are recent, it means that clearing crews are operating in the area. So the risk is higher for nearby forests.
Secondly, it took into account the variables that slow down deforestation: lands protected by indigenous communities, areas with bodies of water or other lands that do not lend themselves to agricultural expansion, among others. Then the AI would come into play.
With PrevisIA, the idea was to hand over all the work to a AI that will automate the mapping of sectors of the Amazon. In this way, the analyzes would be carried out faster and more frequent updates could be offered. Researchers used to manually review thousands of satellite images.
In 2021 they found the last thing they needed. The Imazon team achieved a partnership with Microsoft and Fundo Vale, which provided them with a computational infrastructure with enough capacity to launch the initiative.
One tool for multiple actors
“Technology has always been the reason why we were able to control deforestation,” Juliano Assunção, a professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, told The Guardian. “PrevisAA is a natural evolution of this incorporation of technology in the fight to protect the Amazon, and one with a lot of potential.”
The tool is already there, now someone is needed to take advantage of it. Assunção says the obvious entities that could benefit from using PrevisAA are government agencies. Imazon has official partnerships with a handful of state attorney’s offices in the region.
The academic, however, believes that there are many other institutions not directly involved that could take advantage of the platform. Banks, investors and customers of products in the region, that could use this information to make better decisions, both from the economic and environmental point of view. Thus, the opportunities to save the Amazon would grow considerably.