SOMAI – System for Observation and Monitoring of the Indigenous Amazon

The major sources of fire regime alteration worldwide include climate change, agriculture and ranching, deforestation, rural and urban development, energy production, fire exclusion and suppression, invasive species, plantations, and arson. Integrated fire management (IFM) is an approach that considers both damaging and beneficial fires within the context of the natural environments and socio-economic systems in which they occur. IFM takes into account fire ecology, socio-economic issues, and fire management technology to generate practical solutions to fire-related threats to biodiversity.

Amazonian deforestation rates are used to determine human effects on the global carbon cycle and to measure Brazil's progress in curbing forest impoverishment. But this widely used measure of tropical land use tells only part of the story. Here we present field surveys of wood mills and forest burning across Brazilian Amazonia which show that logging crews severely damage 10,000 to 15,000 km2 yr−1 of forest that are not included in deforestation mapping programmes.