Tropical forest loss is a major cause of climate change. Improved monitoring of tropical forests is crucial to launch effective strategies for forest protection.
That’s why in 2020 the Norwegian International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI) awarded KSAT and its partners Planet and Airbus with a multi-year contract to provide free access to high-resolution satellite images of the tropics to anyone, anywhere, to monitor tropical deforestation. The goal is to help reduce and reverse tropical forest loss through this universal tool.
During the three years the program has been running, it has had a lot of impact and showed the importance of monitoring deforestation with help from satellite images. Now the program will be extended to September 2024, and KSAT will continue to lead it.
- We are proud to continue running this important program and receive lots of feedback and appreciation from users about what the access to this data has made possible. We already see the impact the program has had in terms of improving country reporting obligations as well as improving transparency as part of forest management, Marte Indregard, KSAT CCO says.
The program is designed to be broad to ensure it is useful for as many groups as possible. The data is available for use by any commercial and non-profit organizations as long as the purpose is in line with the initiative’s goals and not for financial gain.
The NICFI Satellite Data Program has so far registered over 1800 users from 158 countries around the world. 80 million tiles streamed from Planet Explorer and 60+ journal articles submitted for peer review.
