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Eye On

New Tool Maps Deforestation

November 30, 2009 By Dan Asin

A new tool from the Center for Global Development, Forest Monitoring for Action (FORMA) tool, uses satellite data to monitor tropical deforestation on a monthly basis. Using publicly available feeds from NASA and other sources, FORMA detects the spread of deforestation in areas as small as 1 square kilometer. The video above uses FORMA to animate the rapidly growing damage in Indonesia over the last four years.

CGD hopes FORMA will help countries monitor the success of forest preservation efforts, as well as verify that those receiving payments to maintain forest cover are, in fact, doing so. Currently limited to Indonesia, FORMA will soon cover the rest of the global tropics.

The tool can be combined with third-party content, such as overlay maps of demographic and forest carbon content data, for additional applications.

Topics: Africa, Asia, Brazil, conservation, Eye On, forests