How satellites are stopping deforestation in Africa
Chelsea Gohd
E-mail Address : cgohd @ space . com Reprinted From : http :// bit . ly / 30gcY22
NEWS
Satellites are helping to reduce deforestation across Africa . Thanks to the help of Earth-orbiting satellites , deforestation , which creates significant carbon emissions and is a major contributor to climate change , has decreased significantly in 22 African countries , researchers found in a new study .
In these countries , organizations subscribed to a free service that sends out alerts about decreases in forest cover in the tropics from a new service that uses up-to-date satellite data . When there is a drop in forest cover , these automated warnings send high-resolution satellite data and alert messages to those in local governments and others interested in decreasing deforestation ( anyone can sign up for the messages ). These messages are delivered as part of the
Global Land Analysis and Discovery system ( GLAD ) on the free , interactive web interface Global Forest Watch , which was initially launched in 2016 .
This new study , led by Fanny Moffette , a postdoctoral researcher in applied economics at the University of Wisconsin- Madison , looked at the effects of these alert messages on deforestation . Moffette and their team observed an 18 % drop over two years in 22 African countries . The carbon emissions avoided with this reduction could be saving anywhere between $ 149 million and $ 696 million in economic damages , University of Wisconsin-Madison officials said in a statement .
Global Forest Watch covers the globe and this study aimed to show how subscriptions to GLAD affected deforestation in Africa , South America and Asia . Now , while the team didn ' t see a decrease in deforestation in South America or Asia in satellite data from over a 2-year period , they saw this drastic decrease in African countries where people subscribed to the system . But only countries in which organizations and officials subscribed to the alerts saw this decrease .
It is not yet clear exactly why some have chosen to subscribe while others are not subscribed , if it is due to personal choice or a lack of access to reliable internet and technology to keep up with these alerts .
While this program is fairly new , the team hopes to continue to study the effects of this subscription system and how access to this satellite data can impact deforestation rates long term .
" Now that we know subscribers of alerts can have an effect on deforestation , there are potential ways in which our work can improve the training they receive and support their efforts ," Moffette said in the same statement .
" We think that we see an effect mainly in Africa due to two main reasons ," Moffette said in the statement . " One is because GLAD added more to efforts in Africa than on other continents , in the sense that there was already some evidence of countries using monitoring systems in countries like Indonesia and Peru . And Colombia and Venezuela , which are a large part of our sample , had significant political unrest during this period ."
Figure 1 : A new study has shown how satellite data can help to reduce deforestation . This image shows forest cover ( shown in green ) in Africa , Asia and South America . ( Image credit : Fanny Moffette / University of Wisconsin-Madison )
Grassroots Vol 21 No 1 March 2021 18