This article was written in collaboration with Seamus Lombardo.

The Amazon is a vast and complex system of forests, freshwater, and savannas that have produced irreplaceable biological and cultural diversity of global importance. However, the region faces increasing pressures and unprecedented change, driven by deforestation, pollution, and fires.

At the same time, expanding protected areas and large-scale restoration investments demonstrate the potential for long-term resilience. For those committed to taking action, there remain many unknowns: How is the Amazon faring? Where are the most important places to protect or restore? Are keystone species declining or rebounding? Have our investments made a difference?

The existing data and research are concentrated in small projects or have shallow history; resulting datasets are fragmented, coarse, or rarely updated. Decision-makers have a hard time using them to make informed decisions or to take the right actions at the right time. Meaningful insights, at scale, are lacking.

Amazon.ia - Inteligencia Ambiental, a new digital public good initiative co-founded by Planet, is addressing these challenges with a revolutionary approach to biodiversity monitoring. Hear from Amazon.ia’s founding partners about how our work is coming to life in the video below.

From Field Sensors to Actionable Intelligence

By coupling satellite and ground sensor data into a unified network encompassing the entire biome, Amazon.ia leverages robust, AI-powered techniques to answer critical conservation questions for decision-makers at all scales, with confidence and in near-real time.

With two dozen partners, the initiative is developing core data infrastructure and analytical capabilities; testing new dynamic, integrated models; and generating meaningful insights to support local-to-regional decision-making needs. This means actionable intelligence for conservation and restoration at scale across the Amazon.

An AI-Powered Monitoring Network

To turn biodiversity data into action, Amazon.ia relies on two complementary components. The first is a pan-Amazonian biodiversity observatory anchoring a network of continuously monitored core sites, including established hubs like Tiputini Biodiversity Station in Ecuador, Los Amigos Biological Station in Peru, and Mamirauá Reserve in Brazil. These core sites are supplemented by a wide array of constellation sites on working lands, restoration areas, and Indigenous and local communities, giving a fuller picture of conditions and pressures in a rapidly changing Amazon.

The second component is an AI-driven intelligence system designed to deliver near-real-time insights tailored to the scale at which decisions are made – from the local landscape, to the national jurisdiction, to the whole biome. These are planned to include change alerts, biodiversity status and ecosystem condition, evidence of protected area effectiveness, and evidence of ecosystem recovery.

By connecting canopy to constellation, we open up exciting possibilities for better information to drive timely, targeted action! Imagine, for instance, local park rangers and conservation stewards receiving alerts about threats to wildlife and ecosystems, national agencies gaining credible evidence of conservation outcomes, and global platforms like Global Nature Watch tracking high-resolution biodiversity metrics across the entire Amazon.

As designed, these insights and models are co-developed in partnership with real-world users from Amazonian countries, ensuring that the results can be used and useful in the policy and management decisions that directly affect the health of the Amazon and its peoples.

A Technological Inflection Point

Four technologies make Amazon.ia possible and practical: eDNA sequencing, solar-powered acoustic sensors, smart camera traps with edge-compute, and satellites. Satellite communications networks connect remote sites directly to cloud servers, while near-daily imagery, hyperspectral sensors, and forest structure analytics – like those made possible by Planet satellites and data – illuminate forest composition, diversity, and health from space. Amazonian organizations have been leading the deployment of many of these technologies across the region.

Binding these tools together is multimodal AI, which can blend diverse molecular, audio and visual data on wildlife with high-resolution satellite data into a comprehensive, biome-wide picture of ecosystem condition. By integrating these technological advances, we can reveal patterns, evaluate solutions, and examine trends in ecosystems and wildlife that would be impossible to detect from any single data source alone.

The partners in the Amazon.ia initiative are pioneering these technologies, deploying them at scale, and experimenting with advanced AI for nature, making what’s possible reality on the ground.

A Community of Innovators for Action

Amazon.ia - Inteligencia Ambiental brings together a diverse network of partners spanning Amazonian research institutions, conservation organizations, leading universities, technology companies, national environmental institutes, and global data and technology platforms. Alongside Planet, they include:

• Andes Amazon Fund
• Arizona State University (Asner Lab)
• Associação de Levantamento Florestal do Amazonas (ALFA)
• Bezos Earth Fund
• Conservación Amazónica (ACCA)
• Cornell Lab of Ornithology
• Cornell University (Davis Lab)
• George Mason University (Luther Lab)
• Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA)
• Instituto de Desenvolvimento Sustentável Mamirauá
• Instituto Humboldt
• International Barcode of Life (iBOL)
• Limelight Rainforest
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Beery Lab)
• Microsoft AI for Good Lab
• Museo Nacional de Historia Natural, Bolivia
• Smithsonian ForestGEO
• Tiputini Biodiversity Station
• Universidad San Francisco de Quito (Rivas Torres Lab)
• Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
• University of Guelph, Centre for Biodiversity Genomics
• Wildlife Conservation Society - Bolivia
• Wildlife Insights
• WildMon
• World Resources Institute
• WWF

Together, we are building the locally led infrastructure, scientific capacity, decision support, and technological innovation needed to generate actionable biodiversity intelligence across the Amazon.

A pathbreaking solution like this one takes a community to develop. We look forward to engaging more collaborators as we scale and implement this initiative!

If you’re interested in learning more about Planet’s digital public goods and impact, check out Impact at Planet and Project Centinela.