- Qin, Yuanwei;
- Xiao, Xiangming;
- Dong, Jinwei;
- Zhang, Yao;
- Wu, Xiaocui;
- Shimabukuro, Yosio;
- Arai, Egidio;
- Biradar, Chandrashekhar;
- Wang, Jie;
- Zou, Zhenhua;
- Liu, Fang;
- Shi, Zheng;
- Doughty, Russell;
- Moore, Berrien
The data, information and knowledge on the tropical forest area and its dynamics in the Brazilian Amazon remain contentious. We use time-series satellite images to quantify annual forest area, loss and gain in the Brazilian Amazon during 2000–2017. We find that forest area was ~15% higher than the estimate by the official Brazilian forest dataset (PRODES), but annual forest-loss rates were twice the PRODES estimates (~0.027 × 106 km2 yr–1 during 2001–2016). Forest-loss rates increased again after 2013. The El Niño and drought year (2015/2016) drove large forest area loss. The cumulative forest-loss area within the protected areas (which include ~50% of forests in the region) was ~11% of the total forest-loss area, which highlights the roles of protected areas in forest conservation.