Satellite Imagery Allows Charity to Map Changes in Forests

Conservation International has long known that the diverse plant and animal population on the African island of

Madagascar — which includes many species found nowhere else — is concentrated in the country’s forests. But now the environmental organization has space-age technology to help it measure how much forest area is left, and pinpoint its location.

The Washington charity uses satellite imagery to create sophisticated maps that show forest cover and forest loss over time. Conservation International pairs those data with aerial photographs that help the charity’s scientists interpret the satellite pictures and fill in the details. To get those photographs, the charity must rent a plane, remove one of its doors, and mount specialized photographic and videographic equipment to capture the view from the side of the plane. Flying a predetermined route, a Conservation International scientist videotapes the landscape and takes still photographs at set intervals. In addition, a local ecologist takes notes on what he sees.

Because the equipment on the planes is linked to the Global Positioning System, or GPS, the data recorded are tagged with a precise location and can be stored in a database alongside the satellite images. As a result, Conservation International has been able to produce detailed images charting Madagascar’s forest cover in 2000 compared with 1990. The maps show current forest cover in green, and areas that were not forest in 1990 or in 2000 in yellow. Forest loss — areas that were forest in 1990, but have since been cut down — is displayed in red and pink, with most of the deforestation in southwest Madagascar.

“The big news in this particular study is that the spiny forest in the south is just getting whacked,” says Daniel Juhn, director of Conservation International’s Regional Analysis Program.

Costs Decrease

Just a few years ago, the high cost of satellite imagery put it out of reach for use by Conservation International and other environmental groups. Since then, though, the price of satellite data has fallen, at the same time that the advanced computing power necessary to analyze the data is becoming more affordable. But the work still doesn’t come cheap. Mr. Juhn estimates that the “seemingly simple” task of mapping forest change in Madagascar probably cost $100,000.

Madagascar is just one of the 25 biodiversity “hot spots” where Conservation International is working. Many are located in developing countries that wouldn’t otherwise have the expertise or the resources to do the mapping themselves.

The organization’s overall investment in geographic information systems, or GIS, includes 10 full-time employees who work in the organization’s Regional Analysis and GIS Mapping Laboratory, in Washington. John Musinsky, the laboratory’s senior director, puts the value of the equipment his unit uses — including 22 high-power geographic-information-systems work stations and a series of printers designed to produce high-quality maps — at $150,000 to $200,000. The laboratory’s annual operating budget, which goes largely toward salary and rent, runs between $600,000 and $800,000.

Frank Hawkins, who heads Conservation International’s Center for Biodiversity Conservation in Madagascar, says information in the forest maps helps him and his colleagues, and the organizations with which they work, decide where to do field surveys to measure the concentration of plant and animal species.

Mr. Hawkins says the results of the field surveys, in combination with the forest-change map, give environmentalists the information they need to determine which geographic areas deserve the most attention.

“You want to be able to target the investments that you make into the places where you’re able to conserve the most biodiversity,” says Mr. Hawkins.

Sharing Information

This month Conservation International’s office in Madagascar will be meeting with other groups interested in the project — including government agencies in Madagascar, such as the Ministry of Water and Forests and the National Park Service; international institutions, like the World Bank; other international environmental organizations working in Madagascar, including the World Wildlife Fund; and local environmental organizations.

At the meeting, Conservation International will discuss the findings presented in the forest-change map, and will give the participants an electronic copy of the map that includes not just the visual form, but also the data that were used to create it. Conservation International will be training meeting participants in how to work with and use the data.

Tyler Christie, Conservation International’s project coordinator for Liberia, believes that the organization’s efforts to expand the technological capacity of the countries in which it works is vital to ensuring that conservation projects are realistic, sustainable, and credible.

In June, Conservation International brought three Liberians to Washington for five weeks of computer-mapping and remote-sensing instruction. The people being trained were employees of Liberia’s Forest Development Authority, Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs, and National Environmental Commission.

After the training in Washington, Mr. Christie spent two months in Liberia helping them set up a laboratory in the capital.

“When policy makers see that this stuff is generated from Liberia, and it’s not just imposed from the outside, that really expands the impact of what we’re doing,” says Mr. Christie.

Conservation International also has created a forest-change map for Liberia that looks at deforestation over the last 15 years. Mr. Christie says that the map will provide an important baseline against which environmentalists can measure the success of their protection efforts.

“With these maps we can get a static picture of Liberia’s forests in 2000-1, and say, ‘OK, this is what the forests are like now,’” says Mr. Christie. “In a couple of years, we can go back and say, ‘What has happened since then? Have these protected areas been successful?’ Without this, it would be very difficult to really know where you’re at.”