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What-If

Explore what could change.

Choose a place, a documented issue and one of its documented interventions, then set how far it goes.

ILLUSTRATIVE SCENARIO — NOT A SCIENTIFIC PREDICTION. Built from documented causes, impacts and solutions plus general qualitative patterns. It contains no modelled numbers.

3 · Intervention
PilotScaledTransformative

Adopted across much of the area, with dedicated budgets and enforcement.

Illustrative scenario

What if Manaus / Amazon took a scaled approach to “Satellite monitoring and enforcement”?

Starting point · documented

NatureSeverity: Critical
Amazon deforestation and forest degradation

Clearing and degradation reduce forest cover with global climate and biodiversity consequences.

The intervention · documented

Satellite monitoring and enforcement

INPE's DETER alerts enable rapid enforcement action against illegal clearing.

Enforcement backed by near-real-time detection has historically coincided with sharp falls in clearing rates.

Schematic direction of change

Halting loss can happen faster than restoring what has been lost; ecosystems recover over years to decades.

Schematic, unitless illustration: relative pressure over time without the intervention compared with the intervention in place. Not based on measured data.NowLonger term →Relative pressure (unitless)
Without the intervention With the interventionSchematic shape only — no data, units or dates.

Causes this could address

  • Conversion to pasture and croplandClearing for cattle ranching and, subsequently, crops is the dominant direct driver of forest loss.
  • Illegal logging and miningUnauthorised timber extraction and gold mining damage forest and watercourses.
  • FireFire used to clear land escapes into standing forest, which is not naturally fire-adapted.

Impacts that could ease

  • Carbon emissionsClearing and burning release stored carbon and reduce the forest's capacity to absorb it.
  • Biodiversity lossThe Amazon holds an exceptional concentration of species, many with restricted ranges, which are lost with their habitat.

Wider reach at higher intensity is an assumption of this illustration.

How change might unfold

  1. Near term

    Rates of clearing or degradation can slow where protection is enforced.

  2. Medium term

    Restored areas begin to function, supporting some species and services.

  3. Long term

    Mature habitat and biodiversity return slowly, and some losses are irreversible.

Faded stages are less likely to be reached at scaled intensity.

What this would not change

Extinctions cannot be reversed, and market, governance and climate pressures continue outside protected areas.

What it depends on

  • Sustained funding and institutional capacity
  • Consistent enforcement and monitoring
  • Local stakeholder support
  • Participation of affected communities

ILLUSTRATIVE SCENARIO — NOT A SCIENTIFIC PREDICTION. Built from documented causes, impacts and solutions plus general qualitative patterns. It contains no modelled numbers.

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