Indians Use Google Earth and GPS To Protect Amazon

Damien1972 writes "Deep in the most remote jungles of South America, Amazon Indians are using Google Earth, GPS, and other technologies to protect their fast-dwindling home. Tribes in Suriname, Brazil, and Colombia are combining their traditional knowledge of the rainforest with Western technology to conserve forests and maintain ties to their history and cultural traditions. Indians use Google Earth to remotely monitor their lands by checking for signs of miners and GPS to map their lands. "Google Earth is used primarily for vigilance," says Vasco van Roosmalen, program director of a nonprofit involved in the project."

old data?

[collinong]

since google map and earth data is not at all real time, wouldn't it be hard for them to use these tools to find new encroachments? a forest or jungle could be cut down in the year or two it takes for google to get new sat images up.

Re:Amazonian rainforests

[gustgr]

While mining is a huge problem in South America's tropical forests, there is also the deforestation problem, both for the value of the wood itself and for cleaning the soil in order to expand the agriculture. The Brazilian government, as I can see it as a Brazilian myself, isn't doing nothing at all to prevent this. In fact, one of the biggest producers of soy in Brazil is also governor of Mato Grosso (a state in which there is a reasonable part of the Amazon forest). His farms are located both in Mato Grosso and in Amazonas (the state where the Amazon forest has its greatest coverage). There are a lot of farmers like him, they take down the trees, sell the woods and then plant soy on the cleaned area.

Brazilian government is actually proud to be in the head at a time when Brazil is exporting soy (and others commodities) as hell. Brazil is not the only guilt though. The buyers (mainly from Europe) should reject soy that was planted on former forest's territory, cattle (meat) created on former forest's territory, etc.

Re:Who in the feck writes this titles?

[Anonymous Coward]

...and Americans live in North AND South America.

But I was able to figure out what you meant; and you were able to figure out what the title meant.

Re:Best way to ensure conservation

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

The Tragedy of the Commons defeats this argument. If I'm the private owner, why should I spend my money to preserve it when I could make money be selling the land to a clear-cutter?

1) Because, as the owner of the land with a vested interest in the land, it is more valuable to you forested (an ongoing resource) than clear-cut (a one-time use). Sure there will be plenty of times when the owner decideds that partial clear-cutting is his ownly choice due to short-term economic problems. But, private ownership is meant to be the least wasteful model, not a utopian (in the classic sense) model.

This article is de facto proof that private ownership of the forest by those with a vested interest in the forest (the native indians) will work.

2) You are trying to use the tragedy of the commons to try to justify the commons (communal ownership of the forest) as the best economic model. Very ironic.

Re:Too bad they can only stop what happened years

[DerekLyons]

Those maps are out of date, it'll be useless to find new operations.

They have satellites up there which are dedicated to monitoring the amazon, as well as radar stations on the ground. So they're using google earth for mapping, not for imaging, I would infer.

TFA directly states that they are obtaining evidence from Google Earth of the existence of the mines and other incursions - I.E. for imaging, not mapping.
 

I know that they have active satellites in orbit currently because my father worked on the project that put them there. I'm rather puzzled though by this story which does not mention either the company my father works for nor the name of the project.

Your reference is a puff piece from eight years ago, it's entirely possible that the birds/system is not present, or entirely operational. Or it may not produce imagery of high enough quality, (land use images can be fairly coarse and still usefull). The lack of mention of them in TFA may indicate (if it is operational) that they are not available to the activists.
 
OTOH - TFA is a fuzzy headed puff piece, so their ignorance of sources of information other than populist ones can easily be explained by their naivete.