Satellite technology to help fight Deforestation

The World Resources Institute, with Google and 40 other global partners, launched a website last week that helps monitor forests, Global Forest Watch.

Andrew Steer, president and CEO of the Institute, appraised the applicability of satellite technology in this area. “Because of amazing developments in the availability of billions of pieces of satellite data […] it is possible to bring, for the first time ever, really real-time data at a very local level to everybody in the world.”

Previous reports on deforestation had impacts in several countries like Canada, Brazil and Indonesia, but the reports were always based on printed data, which is of course not frequently updated. The website offers an easy way to track the deforestation development through nearly real time satellite images, through crowd sourcing and human networks in over 200 countries.