The Future is Collective Case Studies of Collective Social Innovation 2025

When MapBiomas released its annual report on deforestation (RAD) in May 2024, there was cause for both celebration and concern. While the report showed an unprecedented decrease of 62%, it also showed an increase of 68% in the Cerrado biome. Brazil has six biomes; the two major biomes, the Amazon and Cerrado, account for 85% of the country’s deforested areas. In 2023, the Cerrado overtook the Amazon in total area deforested, experiencing a 68% increase over 2022, largely driven by pasture and cropland expansion. Overall deforestation had dropped 11.6% in 2023 in Brazil. Tasso Azevedo, coordinator of MapBiomas, summarized: “The data shows the first drop in deforestation in Brazil since 2019, when the RAD began to be published. On the other hand, the face of deforestation is changing in Brazil, concentrating in biomes where savannah and grassland formations predominate, and reducing in forest formations.” MapBiomas has reported on every deforestation event in Brazil since 2019. During this period, the actions from environmental agencies increased from five to over 50% of the deforested area. Since 2015, MapBiomas – a network of universities, NGOs and tech start-ups – has been mapping and monitoring land cover and land use changes with precision and speed that would have been unfeasible and prohibitively expensive in the past. Using the MapBiomas platform, it is now possible to quantify the complexity of land use changes in Brazil’s biomes (and 13 other countries) over a 39-year period, from 1985 to 2023. With this level of detail and frequency, scientists, policy-makers, companies and government agencies can improve policy- and decision-making to promote sustainable land use in the tropics.8 8. Adapted from MapBiomas Brasil. (2024). RAD 2023: Matopiba Overtakes the Amazon and Takes the Lead in Defrostation in Brazil. https://brasil.mapbiomas.org/en/2024/05/28/matopiba-passa-a-amazonia-e-assume-a-lideranca-do-desmatamento-no-brasil/. Capability Activities Hosting learning communities and building capacityCodifying a methodology: MapBiomas’ methodology for creating maps and publishing them for easy use is becoming best practice and the standard in many sectors and industries. All codes and methods of MapBiomas are openly accessible and free for all users. Capturing and disseminating learnings: Everything that MapBiomas does is public and open. MapBiomas describes the evolution of methods and learnings through detailed algorithm theoretical basis documents (ATBDs), which describe MapBiomas’s current processes as well as their journey to arrive at such processes. Consulting, coaching and training: MapBiomas promotes and provides training for free to all public sector actors based on demand. Investing in systemic solutionsSub-granting to network: Each country member of the network has their own strategy for fundraising. MapBiomas does fundraise for the entire network through the secretariat, and a finance committee determines the allocation of funds for each of the different initiatives. Developing financing solutions: MapBiomas does not sell any products or services and has no plans to do so. The model of being entirely free and open is key for adoption by users in public and private sectors (there is no excuse to not use the data). MapBiomas has recently developed an initiative to allow users to make donations to maintain the platform, but with no relationship with the access of data.Collective action activities (continued) Case vignette: Mapping land use changes in Brazil The Future is Collective: Case Studies of Collective Social Innovation 30