‘Find out what is happening in forests right now’ says Global Forest Watch. Backed by Google and over 40 businesses and campaign groups, GFW has launched a new global monitoring system that will provide us all with information on
deforestation activities going on in every corner of the world.
This technology has been made possible by funding from the US, UK and Norwegian governments.
This piece of technology is really cool because, despite the massive campaign and education on the effects of deforestation, there are still massive illegal (and even legal) tree felling activities going on.
Data from Google and the University of Maryland says the world lost 230 million hectares of trees between 2000 and 2012. To put this in perspective, it is about 50 football fields of trees being cut down every minute of the day over the past 12 years. – Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26287137
This kind of information and figures are really, really disturbing. Unfortunately, it does not look like we appreciate gross the situation is.
This monitoring technology uses high-resolution satellite images from Nasa’s Landsat programme. In a way, it is all-inclusive, as it also relies on local communities, forest campaigners and recognized bodies to load data (information, videos and photographs) of deforestation activities from vulnerable forests around the world.
“Global Forest Watch is a near-real time monitoring platform that will fundamentally change the way people and businesses manage forests,” said Dr Andrew Steer from WRI
This tool will make it possible for the general public and law enforcement officers to identify which large industries are the culprits of deforestation, and which big brands have unsustainable natural resource activities.