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Good news in the Amazon

Drones do reduce illegal logging
phil jones

Illegal logging in the Amazon is down 7% since the Brazilian government quadrupled the number of drones on permanent patrol two years ago.

There are now 400 drones,?Ǭ a mix of powered, solar-gliders and high-altitude balloons, monitoring the whole Amazon region. The system is also supported by live satelite data.

Satelites and balloons identify regions where illegal cutting is suspected, and the powered drones are sent to investigate. Alerts can be confirmed within about 3-4 hours and police taken to the area by helicopter.

A spokesperson for "Allies of the Amazon" welcomed the new data, but warned that far too few (only 5%) of cases resulted in prosecution. Nevertheless he agreed that "Allies of the Amazon"'s own data confirmed the reduction.

Oct 03


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  • jorgeguberte
    Oct 06
    If corruption was reduced in the brazilian goverment, police and army, the illegal logging could be even lower. Unfortunately, our politicians don\\\'t understand that the forest needs immediate solutions! That\\\'s a shame! Transparency bombs on them right now!
  • Brian Petro
    Oct 07
    Too bad we cannot fix the government. Why are we not using more local woods, and using them smarter? If we do not have to depend on unstable governments for our basic supplies (a lesson I thought we would have learned a while back), that would reduce illegal logging even more. The less profit you can get, the less the risk is worth. We need to show Brazil that we no longer need their supplies of wood.
  • Ruud Dirven
    Oct 07
    We are hearing from drones spying on people. These miniatures drones are small and you can\\\'t spot one hiding on a cupboard. But who is talking about those drones built with LEGO parts that kids use to sneak into houses in the neighbourhood and steal expensive stuff? The police laughs you out of the department, they cant even make their normal quota\\\'s. You are on your own when it comes to drones. I even heard of drones hacking in your PC physically, with a little QOR data port on the drone, the think crawling in through an open window, flicking on your PC and sticking the port in your data socket. I heard of a guy doing his online stock portfolio, and the drones selling all his shares and dumping the money on some venezuelan bank account. He lost everything, banks didn\\\'t pay back a dime.
  • phil jones
    Oct 08
    Jorge Guberte : Agreed, I saw a lot of corruption when I lived in the Distrito Federal. Damn, I wish I\\\'d found a way to sneak some transparency windows into some of the software we sold then. :-( Ruud : here we use mosquito nets to keep out the helecopters. Crawlers are another issue, but kids can\\\'t really afford them round here.
  • jorgeguberte
    Oct 10
    PAEC - The Protection of the Amazonical Environment Command. We can create a lot of cells upon this superstructure. http://www.superstructgame.org/SuperstructView/230
  • Calthaer
    Oct 24
    Have there been any thoughts regarding modifying these drones to do more than just monitor? I agree - the corruption in the Brazilian government makes action in the case of illegal logging. Unless someone from the Environmental Investigation Agency can persuade the government to actually do something, they run the risk of having vigilantes hack into this surveillance system and then go after the illegal loggers themselves - potentially deciding to impose lethal force and murdering lawbreakers without a trial or other forms of due process.
  • WhereToNext
    Nov 12
    Drones just to keep our last forest up and going is insane. To think that people didn't stop logging the Amazon after all these years of hearing how bad it is to log the forest and how many animals we are loosing. Your story brings up good points on how the world needs to do more to stop the de-foresting of our forest before it gets this bad.
  • mmincks
    Nov 12
    It is sad that after all the talk of how horrible it is to log in the Amazon, that it is continuing to happen. As stated above, if the corruption in their government decreased there would definitely be a decrease in the amount of logging that happens in the Amazon. It is nice to know that logging has gone down by 7% since the installation of 400 drones, but there is still much more that must be done.
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