Embrapa and the Government of Mato Grosso started last week negotiations for the elaboration of a cooperation agreement using the TerraClass methodology – a result of the partnership between Embrapa and the National Institute of Space Research (INPE), in areas of Mato Thick. The demand for the performance of Embrapa in partnership with Mato Grosso in projects to monitor areas of the state and also in other actions was presented by the State Secretary of Environment, André Luís Torres Baby, and the Executive Secretary Everson Cézar Gomes Metelo, during a meeting articulated by Senator Cidinho Campos (PR-MT) with President Mauricio Lopes. Deputy Ederson (Xuxu) Dal Molin (PSC-MT) also accompanied the delegation.
Launched in 2011, TerraClass is carried out in partnership with the Amazon Regional Center (Inpe) and Embrapa Informática Agropecuária (Campinas, SP). Its objective is to qualify the deforestation of the Legal Amazon and to evaluate the dynamics of the use and occupation of the deforested areas, based on the deforested areas mapped and published by the Prodes Project (Brazilian Amazon Forest Monitoring by Satellite) and satellite images.
The data allow a much more integrated planning of the relationship between land use for agriculture and environmental conservation. This understanding is fundamental for a strategic vision and the creation of scenarios for the future of Brazilian agriculture and the conservation of the Cerrado.
“TerraClass is an important tool for the improvement of the environmental management system of the territory, as it contributes to the generation of qualified information to think about agroecological zoning and risk zoning, influencing, also, the formulation of public policies or their improvement” , emphasized Lopes during the visit of the representatives of the state government and the parliamentarians. He also highlighted the importance of states and municipalities to look at the landscape and the territory with a strategic vision of business. According to the secretary of the Environment, the project will be of great importance for the government of Mato Grosso, since the data generated from Terra Class will allow integrating and qualifying the environmental and agricultural information of the state.