Seeing the Forest for the Trees

Sumatra, Indonesia, 2010                               Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images

Between 2000 and 2012, data show, the world has lost the equivalent of 50 football fields of forest every minute. But there's good news, too. In 2003-04 and 2010-11, Brazil managed to cut its annual forest loss in half. A new online program uses NASA Landsat images, Google Maps and Google Earth engines, and algorithms developed at the University of Maryland to keep track of the state of the world's forests in near real time. Companies can use it to prove that their products are sustainable, and governments and oversight groups can use it to find those who are logging illegally: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26287137