DETER — INPE's Near-Real-Time Satellite Alerts Powering IBAMA's Amazon Deforestation Enforcement

Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE) operates DETER, a satellite-based system that issues near-real-time alerts when forest cover is cleared, so that IBAMA — the federal environmental enforcement agency — can dispatch inspection teams, issue fines, seize equipment and open police operations within days rather than the months required by INPE's older annual PRODES survey.
DETER has run continuously since 2004 and was upgraded to DETER-B in 2015, widening its satellite sources (CBERS, Amazonia-1, ResourceSat) and automated change-detection processing to flag likely clearings for human review; INPE has since extended equivalent daily alert systems to the Cerrado, Caatinga, Atlantic Forest and Pampa biomes, and collaborates with France's CNES on a faster successor, DETER-RT/TropiSCO.
Alerts are not a deforestation count in themselves — PRODES remains Brazil's official annual figure — but they are the trigger for enforcement. In the 12 months to July 2026, DETER-flagged Amazon clearing fell to 2,874 km², down 36% on the previous year and 55.6% below the 10-year average, the lowest level since 2013, a trend INPE and independent reporting tie to renewed enforcement funding and political will under the current federal government rather than the algorithm alone.
Results are uneven across biomes: Cerrado alerts fell only 7.8% over the same period versus 34–42% declines in Caatinga and Pampa, and IBAMA's own data shows a majority of historical deforestation notices have gone unpunished in past years, underlining that satellite detection is necessary but not sufficient without sustained enforcement capacity. Alert data is published openly via INPE's TerraBrasilis platform.

Read the full analysis: https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/amazon-deforestation-alerts-fall-to-lowest-level-since-2013-brazilian-data-show/