In 1960, less than 1% of the Amazon was deforested. Today, that number exceeds 20%. Southeast Asian forests have suffered similar fates: Malaysia has lost roughly one-quarter of its absolute forest cover and Indonesia one-third. During the 21st century, accelerating deforestation hit the Congo River Basin, which has lost roughly 8.5% of its dense forest cover since 1990.

Those are extraordinary changes with extraordinary consequences, not just for the millions of people who live in the forests, but for the whole planet. The shift from carbon sink towards net carbon source warms the Earth; disruption of water cycles and the so-called flying rivers result in both excess rainfall and excess drought; severe flooding and landslides impact agricultural viability.

But how do we know what we know about the rainforests? How do we use that knowledge to govern these places? Indeed, how can increasingly detailed data potentially contribute to reversing deforestation and its consequences?

Tasso Azevedo, a Brazilian scientist, has some answers, and they all trace back to maps. He has spent his career so far building MapBiomas, a hugely influential collaborative network of NGOs, universities, and tech startups. Together, they are leveraging modern technology to map the Amazon as well as large parts of Africa, Asia, and the subcontinent. Listen as he explains how maps and information are the superpowers that could save the rainforests.

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You can also find New Thinking for a New World on your preferred platform, including Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. 

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ABOUT OUR GUEST

Tasso Azevedo is founder and General Coordinator of MapBiomas, a collaborative network of 250+ organizations 26 countries that monitors land use to promote conservation and sustainable management of natural resources and Chair of the Board of the Initiative Connecting Forest People that is creating a network connecting 1 million people in 9000+ forest communities in the Amazon.

Forestry engineer Tasso was the founder and director IMAFLORA, director of the National Forest Program at Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment, and general secretary of the National Forest Commission.  He was the first chief and director general of the Brazilian Forest Service and one of the key designers and implementers of the National Plan to Combat Deforestation and the Amazon Fund. He was the Technical Coordinator of the Climate Observatory, creator and general coordinator of the SEEG – System to Estimate Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Removals in Brazil (2012-2022).

Tasso Azevedo serves as a board member at IMAFLORA, Santander Brazil, the Institute of Energy and Environment (IEMA) and the Schwab Foundation. He is a TED Global speaker and a Brazil Lab Affiliated Scholar at Princeton University.