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Global Forest Watch 2.0 Combats Deforestation and Illegal Logging
Green Technology Featured Articles
March 25, 2013

Global Forest Watch 2.0 Combats Deforestation and Illegal Logging

By Colleen Lynch
TMCnet Contributor

Technology may seem on the surface to have little to nothing to do with nature and the great outdoors, but the two are in fact linked in many ways, not least of which involves the fight to stop illegal logging and criminal timber trade practices.


Deforestation is one of the foremost environmental concerns in the world right now, as approximately 1.6 billion people spanning the entire globe depend on forests for their livelihoods.

The World Resources Institute and its partner UN Environment Program (UNEP) along with various global businesses and NGOs are hard at work developing ways to combat the rampant deforestation occurring worldwide. One project currently in the works is Global Forest Watch 2.0, set for launch later this year. The system is built to integrate remote-sensing technology and forest maps that operate in almost real-time, in order to help identify and chart illegal logging and areas of high deforestation.

The technology combines both satellite and crowd-sourced data, allowing even local communities to access the system, create alerts, and contact authorities to respond to nearby deforesting crimes.

Global Forest Watch 2.0 and other similar technologies are essentially looking to distribute and share the management and protection of forests equally among those affected and interested in conservation.

Alerts will reportedly be sent primarily via social media websites such as Facebook or Twitter (News - Alert), which will help increase the response time for logging crimes significantly. Satellite images currently in use to monitor illegal logging generally come in too slowly, allowing the loggers to get away the majority of the time.

Global Forest Watch 2.0 supplies images that are so much closer to real-time than anything available before, as satellite images in Indonesia for example took three years to generate (while some can take up to five years).

This issue is becoming increasingly important in today’s age when the future security of healthy forests is legitimately in question, and events like the world’s first International Day of Forests, held this week on March 21st 2013, are helping to raise awareness among governments, companies, civil society organization and enforcement agencies all over the world.

Global Forest Watch 2.0 is one step in the right direction.




Edited by Brooke Neuman


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