Survey points out failure to ensure accessible data on environmental crimes in the Amazon
01 de October de 2025
By Fred Santana – From Cenarium
MANAUS (AM) – A survey by Fiquem Sabendo, a non-profit organization specializing in public transparency, revealed low transparency among the states of the Legal Amazon regarding environmental crimes. According to the NGO, they still do not provide qualified and accessible data on environmental offenses, despite the region’s strategic relevance for combating climate change.
Among the main problems are the delivery of files in unsuitable formats, such as PDF or proprietary Excel, lack of data dictionaries, and absence of usage licenses. In addition, most states failed to provide essential information such as the CPF or CNPJ of offenders, even when masked, and limited the location of violations to the municipal level, without precise georeferencing.
The report also pointed out that no state Secretariat of the Legal Amazon states made databases available in open formats such as CSV, and all failed to include minimum documentation to allow proper interpretation of the data. According to the report’s conclusion, the scenario undermines social control over activities such as deforestation, mining, and illegal burning in the region.
Failures
According to the document, only Amazonas and Pará maintain databases in active transparency, but there are technical obstacles that hinder public use of the information. Amazonas responded in just four days to requests via the Freedom of Information Act (LAI) and was one of the few to provide geographic coordinates of violations, while Pará took 90 days, the legal maximum. Acre, on the other hand, did not even respond.
In Rondônia, the data provided on environmental crimes showed significant gaps. The state agency sent information without the standardization required by the LAI and failed to include essential elements such as the Individual Taxpayer Registry (CPF) or Corporate Taxpayer Registry (CNPJ) of offenders. Detailed geographic coordinates were also not provided, generally limited to municipal identification. For researchers and journalists, this makes spatial analysis of violations such as deforestation and fires in the state difficult.
Roraima was one of the few Amazonian states to provide geographic coordinates for environmental violations, which represents progress compared to its neighbors. However, the database lacked a data dictionary and usage license, compromising safe and transparent reuse of the information. In addition, sending the data in Excel format, rather than CSV, showed that the state is far from international open data standards.
Amapá responded to requests, but the data presented technical flaws and lacked fundamental fields. Information about offender identification was limited, and the state did not provide geographic coordinates, restricting location only to the municipal level. The lack of metadata and documentation also made it impossible to safely interpret the figures, according to the report.
The case of Tocantins drew attention due to technical difficulty in accessing the information. The state agency sent the data in PDF files, a format that does not meet open data criteria and hinders analysis and reuse by society. In addition, the content came without any supplementary documentation, requiring intense rework for researchers to use the numbers.
In Mato Grosso, a state with some of the highest deforestation rates in the Amazon, the information provided was deemed incomplete. Although the agency responded to the LAI, the database did not cover all requested historical series and failed to present key columns such as the identification of those fined and CPF/CNPJ, even masked. The absence of these elements limits the possibility of linking violations to specific companies or individuals.
Maranhão showed weaknesses similar to other Legal Amazon states. The data sent did not include geographic coordinates nor provide minimum documentation such as a data dictionary. Technical quality was considered low, with inconsistencies in dates and gaps in important variables. For the report, the situation undermines transparency precisely in a region of expanding deforestation in the so-called “deforestation arc.”
Old blackout
A study by Transparency International – Brazil, in partnership with the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji) and the Centro de Vida Institute, evaluated 41 databases from federal and state agencies and concluded that the Legal Amazon states have, on average, only 33% open data on environmental crimes. Federal databases fared better, with about 65% openness, but the states – including those in the Amazon – lag far behind. The survey considered criteria such as updating, accessible format, documentation, and free license, and revealed that Acre, Maranhão, and Roraima scored zero on this scale.
The same study also shows that certain topics perform particularly poorly in Amazonian states – and they are precisely some of the most sensitive: land grabbing had only 23% openness, wildlife trafficking 33%, pesticide use 56%. On the other hand, databases on deforestation and illegal logging achieved the best openness rates, 93% and 84%, respectively, indicating potential for progress, but concentrated in a few specific types of violations.
Impacts on INPE
Currently, one of the most efficient alert systems for evidence of forest cover change in the Amazon is DETER, developed by the National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPE). With it, it is possible to combine satellite data with administrative sanction databases to make oversight proactive and strategic.
This, however, requires that administrative databases include standardized dates, legal codes (legal hypothesis), sanction amounts, and coordinates. Without this minimum standard, the use of remote alerts to guide operations is compromised. Publishing these columns in open format is an efficiency gain for both the state and society.
A study by the University of Cambridge states that the enforcement of sanctions, land ownership, and violence are severely impaired when public information is weak, allowing groups with illegal interests to operate with greater impunity. Information that could connect fines to economic agents and marketing chains becomes inaccessible. The research also states that improving the availability of enforcement data is not just a technical matter, but a tool to reduce the risks of local capture and violence associated with resource disputes.
Researchers studying the enforcement regime in the Amazon show that the effectiveness of combating deforestation and other violations depends not only on operations on the ground but also on structured data – historical series, records of sanctions, and georeferencing that allow cross-checking with satellite images.
A paper published in Nature that analyzed enforcement indicators between 2000 and 2020 demonstrates how changes in control mechanisms (including their “militarization” in some periods) directly influence forest loss dynamics; without accessible and standardized data, it becomes almost impossible to causally evaluate these policies.