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Good practice Imported

DETER — Brazil's Near-Real-Time Satellite Deforestation Alert System for Amazon Law Enforcement

Brazil · Sao Jose dos Campos · See the Brazil profile

Evidence: Quasi-experimental Top 58% 40/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Brazil's INPE space agency built DETER, a near-daily satellite deforestation-alert system, to target Amazon law enforcement; a peer-reviewed causal evaluation found DETER-linked enforcement cut 2007-2011 deforestation by 59% and prevented over 59,500 km2 of forest loss.

59,500+ km2
Deforestation prevented (2007-2011)
59%
Deforestation reduction vs. counterfactual (2007-2011)
41,500 km2
Actual deforestation (2007-2011)
~3 ha
Detection threshold after DETER-B upgrade (2015+)
DETER — Brazil's Near-Real-Time Satellite Deforestation Alert System for Amazon Law Enforcement

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
INPE (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais); IBAMA (Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renovaveis)
Period
2004-2011
Keywords
satellite monitoring, deforestation alerts, environmental law enforcement, Amazon forest governance

Context

DETER, launched in 2004 by Brazil's INPE, processes near-daily satellite imagery to issue rapid deforestation-clearing alerts, feeding IBAMA to target ranger deployments and a policy of 'blacklisting' high-deforestation municipalities.

Activities

Economists evaluated the causal effect of DETER-based monitoring and enforcement in the Brazilian Legal Amazon during 2007-2011, using cloud-cover variation as an instrument for detection capacity.

Results

Actual deforestation totalled 41,500 km² — 59% less than the estimated counterfactual without the DETER-based policy — implying more than 59,500 km² of forest clearing was prevented, with no detected negative effect on agricultural production.

Conclusions

DETER has since become a permanent pillar of Brazilian forest governance, though detection thresholds and enforcement follow-through have varied across administrations.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k) — National satellite-monitoring system operated by INPE; specific budget not published in reviewed sources.
Time to results
Long (> 3 years) — Launched 2004; DETER-B upgrade 2015; causal evaluation covers 2007-2011.
Staffing & skills
INPE satellite-imagery analysts, IBAMA field rangers acting on alerts

Conditions for success

  • near-daily satellite imagery processing
  • alerts fed directly to enforcement agency (IBAMA)
  • municipal 'blacklisting' policy restricting credit/supply-chain access for high-deforestation municipalities

Common failure modes

  • detection thresholds and enforcement follow-through have varied across administrations
  • deterrent effect depends on sustained political will to act on alerts

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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