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Google Earth and democracy

By Rhett Butler - posted Thursday, 9 April 2009


“Because Google Earth provides, for many areas, such a realistic model of the real earth, you almost feel as if you are on that mountaintop or looking over that valley,” said Moore. “This immersive experience enables conservation organisations to convey complex environmental issues more quickly and persuasively to busy decision-makers, the media and the general public.”

Many scientists have begun to adapt Google Earth technology to their research and their communications with the public. The technology also has emerged as an effective way to publish scientific results in an accessible and meaningful format. While Google Earth is not going to replace scientific journals, it offers a concise, visual format for presenting research that can be more compelling than data points on a chart, rows in a spreadsheet, or a 4-color map.

Mark Mulligan of the Environmental Monitoring and Modeling Group at King’s College London has capitalised on the power of Google Earth to create HealthyPlanet.org, an initiative that allows people to virtually see, and sponsor, a specific piece of many of the planet’s 77,000 protected areas. His group also worked on an application, Costing Nature, that allows users to trace stream flow in an urban area back to the protected area where it fell as rainfall, providing a potent example of the value of ecosystem services. In addition, Mulligan's team has developed Google Earth applications examining the impact of oil production in the Ecuadorean Amazon and the distribution of tropical cloud forests.

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“Traditionally remote sensing data have been difficult to get hold of, difficult to process, and beyond the means of many of the smaller conservation organisations,” said Mulligan. “Google Earth allows these organisations to look at their projects from space and draw upon a wealth of environmental data, in addition to the imagery. Clearly, conservation needs good professionals working with communities on the ground, but it also needs to harness the significant body of interested citizens who can do their bit.”

Google Earth is also being used for original research. One study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science last year, was based on an analysis of 8,510 cattle spotted in Google Earth images of 308 pastures and plains around the world. Surprisingly, two-thirds of the cattle - as well as a majority of 3,000 grazing deer monitored in satellite photos from the Czech Republic - tended to align themselves with the Earth's magnetic field lines, in a north-south direction. The research employed satellite technology to spot a phenomenon that literally had been hiding in plain sight for millennia: that large, non-migratory land animals were affected by the earth’s magnetism. (Earlier studies had established that magnetism guided the long-distance migrations of birds, fish, butterflies, and animals.)

Among the ordinary citizens who have been most active in marshaling the power of Google Earth for environmental work is David Tryse. His interest in conservation led him to develop an application for the Zoological Society of London's “EDGE of Existence” program, an initiative to promote awareness of - and generate funding for - 100 of the world’s rarest species. His application allows people to surf the planet to see photos of endangered species, information about their habitat, and the threats they face. Tryse also has used Google Earth to track deforestation worldwide, highlight hydroelectric threats to Borneo’s rivers, map global biodiversity hot spots, and monitor encroachment on the lands of isolated, indigenous tribes around the world.

The Jane Goodall Foundation, a partner in a project known as Google Earth Outreach, uses Google Earth three-dimensional images to show Tanzanian villagers that forests are the source of their water and to enlist the villagers in identifying chimpanzee habitat and elephant paths.

One of the first Google Earth Outreach projects involved indigenous tribes in the Amazon rain forest. Facing an onslaught of threats to their lands and culture, the tribes have embraced advanced technology as a means of protecting and better managing their homeland. The tribes - including the Surui in western Brazil and the Wayana and Trio in Suriname - are using GPS to map their lands, plot rivers, sites of spiritual significance, and their resources, including medicinal plants and rich hunting grounds. The Rainforest Foundation UK and the Global Canopy Program are taking a similar approach in Congo and Cameroon, respectively, helping communities map their lands to protect against illegal logging and other forms of encroachment.

"Google Earth is used primarily for vigilance," said Vasco van Roosmalen, Brazil program director for the Amazon Conservation Team, an organisation that has co-ordinated the Google Earth project with the tribes. "Indians log on to Google Earth and study images, inch by inch, looking to see where new gold mines are popping up or where invasions are occurring. They can see river discoloration, which could be the product of sedimentation and pollution from a nearby mine. They are able to use these images to find the smallest gold mine."

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As Chief Almir Surui of the Suri tribe put it, "The Surui know little about the Internet, but Google knows little about the forest, so working together we will be stronger".

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First published in Yale Environment 360 on March 26, 2009.



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About the Author

Rhett Butler is the founder and editor of Mongabay.com, one of the leading sites on the Web covering tropical forests and biodiversity. In previous articles he has written about how the global commodities boom accelerated clearing of the Amazon and about the burgeoning wildlife trade in Laos.

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