By Workgroup: NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR SPACE RESEARCH INPE

Responsible Expert:                              Ulf Walter Palme Tel: (55 123) 25-6446. Fax: (55 123) 21-8743 E-mail:Ulf@ltid.inpe.br Tel: (55 123) 25-6446. Fax: (55 123) 21-8743 E-mail:

The Federal Government has used the deforestation assessment in the Brazilian Legal Amazonia (which covers over 70% of the Amazonian Forest total area), carried out by the National Institute for Space Research of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MCT/INPE) to reduce deforestation in Amazonia by means of the formulation of new legislation.

Over almost two decades, the MCT/INPE developed and consolidated the methodology for deforestation assessments based on visual interpretation of Landsat images, generated from data INPE has received and collected since 1973. The methodology has been used operationally and has proved to be very useful in directing policy makers on monitoring activities and formulation of public policies for the Legal Amazonia.

Such assessment collected data for the 91-92 and 92-94 periods. It required a total of 414 colored photographic images of LANDSAT TM channels in the visible, near and medium infrared at the scale of 1:250,000.

The study analyzed the forest areas in the Legal Amazonia, which account for around 80% of a total of 5 million square kilometers.