{totalPosts} articles under the Map of the Week category
Map of the Week: Tracking Logging Roads in the Congo Basin
By Sofia Soto Reyes Western Lowland Gorilla (in captivity). Source: Heather Paul (Flickr). License available here. Located in western equatorial Africa is a vast expanse of green that blankets six Congo Basin countries: Cameroon, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Republic of the Congo. Second only to the Amazon rainforest […]
Map of the Week: GLAD Alerts show recent loss in Brazil’s Jamanxim National Park
By Sofia Soto Reyes Parrot in the Amazon, Brazil. Source: Neil Palmer/CIAT for Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR/Flickr). License available here. The Amazon Rainforest is home to one-tenth of all plant and animal species on the planet and produces one-fifth of all the oxygen we breathe. Monitoring and protecting such a rich natural resource […]
Map of the Week: Using GLAD Alerts to monitor Intact Forest Landscapes in Peru
By Sofia Soto Reyes Peru ranks as one of the ten most biodiverse countries on the planet, with more than half of its territory made up of the Amazon Rainforest. The Ucayali region, named for the Ucayali River, which serves as the main mode of transport for Peru’s timber trade, flows through a part of the Peruvian Amazon that is designated as an Intact Forest Landscape (IFL). Global Forest Watch’s Intact Forest Landscapes layer displays the extent of world’s last remaining undisturbed forests, […]
Map of the Week: Viewing Historic Fire Risk in Indonesia
By Sofia Soto Reyes Last year, Indonesia’s fire season was one of the worst on record. As such, vigilance in monitoring weather conditions is crucial. This task has been made easier as GFW Fires recently released a Fire Risk map. Satellite-based data on temperature, humidity, and rainfall is used to estimate how wet or dry tree […]
Map of the Week: Large-Scale Logging Threatens Europe’s Last Primeval Forest
By Liz Cole Białowieża Forest in Belarus. Source: Marc Veraart (Flickr). One of the world’s oldest and largest primeval forests is under threat due to recent approval of industrial logging in Poland. Spanning the border of Poland and Belarus, the Białowieża Forest is the last of the lowland forests, which covered all of Europe following […]
Map of the Week: Tracking Hurricane Patricia in Near Real-Time
Tracking Hurricane Patricia in Near Real-Time As Hurricane Patricia – the strongest hurricane ever recorded – prepares to make landfall in Mexico, people everywhere can use Global Forest Watch tools to track hurricane winds in the face of this critical national emergency. Global Forest Watch Fires uses data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric […]
Map of the Week: Planned Natural Gas Pipeline Threatens Protected Areas in Virginia and W. Virginia
By Elizabeth Goldman The Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a 550-mile planned natural gas pipeline that would run from West Virginia to North Carolina, has been in the news recently over environmental impact concerns. According to the U.S. Forest Service, if the project moves forward, 30 miles of the pipeline would run through national forests in Virginia […]
Map of the Week: NASA Fire Alerts Detect Eruption of Indonesia’s Raung Volcano
By James Anderson and Lisa Johnston While investigating forest and bush fires in Indonesia the GFW team stumbled across a surprisingly dense cluster of NASA fire alerts on the Global Forest Watch map in East Java, Indonesia. Turns out these fires weren’t for clearing forest and scrub land for agriculture. In fact, they weren’t human-caused […]
Map of the Week: Forest and Land Fires Spike in Alaska
By James Anderson Hundreds of fires have sprung to life in Alaska’s forests and grasslands this week, according to Alaskan authorities and confirmed by satellite-based data on Global Forest Watch. Stories in the Washington Post, Mashable, and elsewhere have reported on the blazes, which have followed a record month of hot temperatures and low snowpack […]
Map of the Week: Tornadoes Leave Tracks Though U.S. Southern Forests
By James Anderson Growing up in America’s Midwest, I was raised with a healthy fear of tornadoes. These swirling columns of air can cut through buildings, scatter cars, and wreak massive damage on the economy and human lives. Apparently, according to the data on Global Forest Watch, they can also leave a trail of destruction […]
Map of the Week: Typhoon Haiyan
By Octavia Payne Typhoon Haiyan, known in the Philippines as Typhoon Yolanda, struck the Leyte islands in early November 2013. Recorded as the Philippines’ deadliest typhoon in modern history, Haiyan left 6,300 fatalities in its wake and another 11 million affected. Path of Typhoon Haiyan. Red dots indicate Category 5 classification (winds ≥157 mph, ≥252 km/h) as the […]
Map of the Week: Forest and Land Fires in Siberia Turn Deadly
Forest and brush fires claimed at least 29 lives last week in the southeastern Siberian province of Khakassia, Russia. Thousands more have been displaced from their homes by the encroaching flames. According to news reports, the fires may have been started by local farmers burning their fields. Strong winds may have caused the fires to […]
