Peru's indigenous tribes use technology to reduce deforestation in Amazon: Study

Indigenous people patrolling in the Peruvian Amazon equipped with smartphones and satellite data were able to reduce illegal deforestation, according to a new study. The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The study analysed the impact of indigenous forest community monitoring patrols in reducing tree losses when equipped with satellite-based alerts.

Technology helped to reduce tree loss

The governments in Brazil, Peru, and Colombia have adopted alert systems that generate remotely sensed deforestation data that measure tree cover loss. The new study was led by Researchers from New York University and Johns Hopkins University in collaboration with Rainforest Foundation US and the Indigenous People's Organization of the Eastern Amazon (ORPIO).This new research tried to find if putting information directly into the hands of forest communities would make a difference. The authors of the study identified 76 remote villages in the Peruvian Amazon, with 36 randomly-assigned to participate in this new monitoring programme, according to the ORPIO press release. 

According to the study, monitor teams respond to tree cover loss alerts by conducting patrols to collect on-the-ground information on these alerts and other deforestation in community territory. Relative to monitoring without the alerts, the alerts reduce the cost of locating disturbances, which increases the efficiency of monitoring vast territories. Monitor teams subsequently communicate this information to community members and authorities. Communities respond by deciding whether and how to take action to control users of forest resources. Remote-sensed deforestation alerts provide high-frequency information on tree cover loss in the Amazon.

The survey's evidence suggested that the community members perceived the new monitors as authorities with influence over forest management and that the monitors incentivized patrols to substitute for traditional citizen patrols. It found a decrease of 52 per cent from the average area of tree cover loss in communities assigned to control. The evidence in the study suggested that community monitoring combined with remote-sensing technology may reduce tree cover loss. The reduction of forest loss was especially concentrated in the communities that face the most pressing threats from illegal gold mining, logging, and the planting of illicit crops such as coca plants used to manufacture cocaine. Jacob Kopas. co-author of the study revealed that if the results are verified elsewhere, the policing programs implemented by indigenous people in the Amazon. 

"If our results are verified elsewhere, havindg other similar community policing programs implemented by indigenous peoples in the Amazon coul contribute to sustainable forest management on a larger scale", said Jacob Kopas in the press release of ORPIO. 

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