Latin America is reforesting and the clear cutting has slowed down there, but now Indonesia has become a hot spot. About 23,000 square miles of forests have been cut in the last 15 years for the palm oil and logging industries. A good 40% of the cleared territory has been in areas with official logging restrictions that have been ignored. It’s tough to keep tabs on huge forests, but conservationists are rallying to the rescue with high tech.
The World Resource Institute has a project called Global Forest Watch that uses US government satellites and sophisticated software to keep an eye on things from above. They can detect changes that can not be accounted for naturally and alert government officials and activists to take appropriate action.
Rainforest Connection members attach old solar-powered smartphones to trees to listen for tell tale cutting like the buzz of chainsaws. The microphones “hear” logging from up to a mile away. The phone sends a message to a remote server that notifies authorities with an exact GPS location. The surveillance was tested on Sumatra and will be deployed for the Amazon and equatorial Africa next.
(See InClimate 716 on photosynthesis and 7 Latin American countries agreeing to reforest along with an 8th expected to follow suit.)
Source: Sierra, Jan/Feb 2015 and
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