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| A map showing Sumatra's forest cover in 1985. (Photo Courtesy of http://maps.eyesontheforest.or.id) |
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Sumatra
becomes a digital paint-by-number as you play with the layering functions of
the “Google Earth: Eyes on the Forest” map. With one click, the world’s
sixth-largest island becomes a sea of green rainforest. Another click reveals a
decidedly less emerald present-day reality.
Toggling
the various data sets can be an enlightening — and for the environmentally
conscious, alarming — exercise.
The
project, unveiled last week, is a joint venture of Google Earth Outreach, the
World Wildlife Fund and Eyes on the Forest, a Sumatra-based coalition of
environmental NGOs. It organizes decades of data in a visual array that sheds
light on a bedeviling question: Just what’s really out there in Sumatra, and
how quickly are the forests being destroyed?
Users can query
the Google Maps Engine for an assortment of data on Sumatra, such as what land
is ostensibly under government protection, what types of forests exist and once
existed, and which land tracts are considered high-priority conservation areas.
In the spotlight
are four critically endangered species — the Sumatran rhino, elephant,
orangutan and tiger — that are often the “faces” of deforestation on the
island. Users can set the map to reveal the shrinking ranges of these animals
over the last 25 years.
It becomes
clear that Sumatra’s shrinking forests are sending these animals the way of the
dodo.
Afdhal
Mahyuddin, a spokesman for the coalition, said a synthesis of governmental and
NGO data began in the early 2000s. The tool’s creators hope the map can help
inform policy debates, raise awareness and maybe, just maybe, slow the rate of
deforestation.
“Now is the
time to turn these static reports into dynamic, living web-based databases,”
Afdhal wrote in an e-mail to the Jakarta Globe. “WWF and EoF focused on Sumatra
… as it is the island with the highest deforestation rate in Indonesia and
where transparency on the drivers of that deforestation is needed the most.”
The most
sobering feature of the new tool is the ability to push “play” on the deforestation
that has taken place on the island since 1985, watching the dramatic withering
of the island’s forest cover play out on loop. Based on WWF data, the Google
Maps Engine shows the incremental loss of just less than 50 percent of natural
forest cover since 1985.
Map layers
also address the broader issue of deforestation’s contribution to carbon
dioxide-induced global warming, which is taking place in rainforests across the
world. The depletion of carbon stocks stored up in trees and peatland is a
problem not just for Sumatran tigers and rhinos, but for humankind’s posterity
as well.
The project
is a logical outgrowth of two things: the fact that Indonesia’s rainforests are
seeing some of the fastest rates of deforestation on the planet, and Indonesians’
insatiable appetite for all things web-related. Maps may succeed where protests
and studies have not.
It is part
of a broader suite of Google Earth projects with a philanthropic bent,
typically launched in collaboration with NGOs. Recent projects include a map to
track land-mine clearing around the world; partnering with an indigenous tribe
to protect the Amazon rainforest they call home; and a map revealing the
effects of mountaintop mining removal in the United States’ Appalachian
Mountains.
The Sumatra
team hopes to eventually include other regions and data sets.
“Ultimately,
a nationwide civil society-driven ‘Internet map facility’ like this would be
very desirable,” Afdhal wrote. “But it would only work and stay current if it
is supported by all the stakeholders who have and are collecting detailed
knowledge on any given geographical area to be collected by the facility.”
“Further
expansion is planned, but will also depend on how fast we can find funding for
the work.”
And as they
say, money doesn’t grow on trees.
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