What’s happening in the Amazon.
The world’s largest rainforest in real satellite pictures and video, with the latest numbers from official sources and the people on the front line protecting it. We update the numbers every week.
Forest clearing is down in Brazil. Drought, fire and illegal gold mining are the dangers now.
The Amazon from space: fires, close-ups and forest loss
NASA’s satellites photograph the whole Amazon every day and spot fires from orbit. Switch to a close-up for pictures sharp enough to see gold-mining pits, new roads and fresh clearings, plus NASA’s own alerts where trees were just lost.
Whole Amazon: NASA’s daily VIIRS pictures (Suomi NPP) and VIIRS fire and heat detections (Suomi NPP and NOAA-20). Close-up: NASA’s Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2 pictures at 30 meters (Landsat 8 and 9 from NASA and USGS; contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2026), NASA’s OPERA forest-loss alerts (DIST-ALERT) and water map (DSWx), all through NASA’s Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS). Clouds hide the ground on many days, so the close-up picks the clearest picture from the last few weeks for the spot you’re looking at. Fire detections also catch gas flares and other heat. Explore more in NASA Worldview ↗
Real satellite pictures
NASA’s satellites watch the Amazon every day. These pictures show what drought, fire, gold mining and clearing look like from above.
OCT. 8, 2022OCT. 3, 2023
JULY 30, 2000JULY 18, 2012See today’s view from space on NASA Worldview ↗, and this week’s fires on NASA’s fire map ↗.
Real video from the front line
Yanuni: official trailer
Juma Xipaia’s fight against illegal mining, from the Oscar-shortlisted documentary. From Leonardo DiCaprio’s YouTube channel.
On patrol with Paul Rosolie and Junglekeepers
What protecting the forest looks like day to day on Peru’s Las Piedras River. From Age of Union, a Junglekeepers backer.
Peru raids illegal gold mines
Footage from Peru’s August 2026 operation as illegal miners pushed into Tambopata National Reserve. From AP Archive.
Tap a video to play it. The preview pictures come from YouTube, and the video loads from YouTube’s privacy-enhanced player only when you tap play.
What the Amazon really does, and one myth
“The lungs of the planet”
You may have heard the Amazon makes 20% of the world’s oxygen. Scientists estimate its plants make about 6 to 9%, and the forest’s own trees and microbes use nearly all of it, so its net share is close to zero.
Source: FactCheck.org ↗
It holds a huge amount of carbon
The Amazon stores about 150 to 200 billion metric tons of carbon in its trees and soil. If it all went into the air, carbon dioxide would rise by about 100 parts per million, roughly a quarter more than today.
Source: FactCheck.org ↗
It makes its own rain
About 30% of the moisture over the Amazon comes from the forest itself, as trees breathe out water that falls again as rain. A 2026 study found clearing caused most of the drop in rainfall in the southern Amazon since 1980.
The same El Niño
This year’s strong El Niño links us: the same event that usually brings milder winters to the northern U.S. is expected to bring heat and drought to the Amazon this fall.
More: our El Niño watch
New species found in and around the Amazon
Scientists are still naming animals nobody had described before, including the first new wild cat in more than 100 years. Every one of them depends on forest that’s still standing.
Photos are used under the free licenses named under each one. We add new discoveries as scientists publish them.
The people on the front line
Paul Rosolie and Junglekeepers
Paul Rosolie, a conservationist and author, leads Junglekeepers, whose local rangers protect rainforest along Peru’s Las Piedras River. In January 2026, after an armed ambush on conservation leaders and attacks from narcos, illegal miners and loggers, they launched END GAME: 18 months to protect 50,000 acres of the Las Piedras corridor and make it a national park. His book Junglekeeper came out in 2026.
Support Junglekeepers ↗ About END GAME ↗Juma Xipaia
Juma Xipaia is a leader of the Xipaya people in Brazil’s Amazon. She became the first woman chief in the Middle Xingu region and later Brazil’s first secretary of Indigenous rights. She has survived six assassination attempts while standing up to illegal gold mining that poisons rivers with mercury, to deforestation and to land invasion. Her story is the documentary Yanuni, shortlisted for the 2026 Academy Awards.
Hear her story ↗What you can do from here
Trusted groups working on the ground, free tools to watch the forest yourself, and everyday choices that add up. We don’t get anything for these links.
Protect the forest directly
- Junglekeepers ↗ Local rangers guarding the Las Piedras River forest in Peru (Paul Rosolie’s group).
- Rainforest Trust ↗ Buys and protects threatened rainforest with local partners.
- Amazon Conservation ↗ Protects land in Peru and Bolivia and runs MAAP, the satellite watch on clearing and gold mining.
- Re:wild ↗ Protects wild places and searches for species feared lost.
- Big international groups working there too: WWF ↗, Conservation International ↗, The Nature Conservancy ↗ and Rainforest Action Network ↗.
Stand with Indigenous peoples
- Rainforest Foundation US ↗ Helps Indigenous communities secure their land and patrol it with phones, drones and satellite alerts.
- Amazon Frontlines ↗ Backs Indigenous peoples defending their land in Ecuador and Peru.
- Amazon Watch ↗ A nonprofit (not us) that works with Indigenous groups to protect the Amazon.
- COICA ↗ The alliance of Indigenous peoples across the whole Amazon basin.
- APIB ↗ Brazil’s national alliance of Indigenous peoples.
- Survival International ↗ Speaks up for tribal and uncontacted peoples.
Watch the forest yourself, free
- Global Forest Watch ↗ Near-live maps of tree loss and fire alerts anywhere on Earth.
- MAAP ↗ Satellite reports on new clearing and gold mining in the Andes and Amazon.
- NASA FIRMS ↗ NASA’s fire map, updated through the day.
- INPE TerraBrasilis ↗ Brazil’s official deforestation numbers.
- Imazon ↗ Brazilian researchers who track clearing month by month.
Everyday choices
- Buying gold? Ask for recycled or Fairmined ↗ gold, so none of it comes from illegal mines that poison Amazon rivers with mercury.
- Look for FSC ↗ on wood and paper, and the Rainforest Alliance ↗ frog seal on coffee, cocoa and bananas.
- Before you give, look the charity up on Charity Navigator ↗.
- Watch Yanuni, check the numbers here each week, and share this page. People protect what they know about.
Our sources
NASA’s pictures are public domain; the credit is under each one. Videos belong to their channels. We pass along official numbers and reporting from trusted sources and link every one, and we don’t take sides in any country’s politics. Have a correction? Tell us.