Recently, Terra-i habitat loss data has been explored by research work independent from the Terra-i team’s periodic case studies. Sergio Cortes, a former master’s student from the University of Southampton (United Kingdom), assessed the ground truth drivers of land cover and land use changes at a local scale in the departments of Cundinamarca and Tolima (Colombia) based on Terra-i data from 2004 to 2011. The results confirmed the link between…

Can the Terra-i tool only detect areas of natural vegetation loss? The answer is: “No”! Indeed, increases in the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) associated with vegetation growth, either natural or introduced, can also be detected. This has being explored for the first time through a case study in a hotspot region of Piura, Peru, where pilot runs have demonstrated the use of NDVI increases in identifying vegetation growth…

During the last 40 years, Bolivia has been experiencing high land use and land cover changes. This December 2012, Louis Reymondin and Alejandro Coca spent five days training a team of researchers to use and implement the Terra-i system at the headquarters of the Bolivian National System of Monitoring and Information (SNIB)…

Last Thursday, InfoAmazonia.org, a platform for interactive maps, published Terra i’s data on deforestation in the Amazon rainforest on their website….

Last week, Louis Reymondin, CIAT’s visiting researcher and main developer of the Terra-i system, was interviewed by CBS News. Terra-i, which was launched during the Rio+20 conference in Brazil, is a system for near real time land cover or habitat change monitoring over Latin America. To get Louis’s view on deforestation trends and an insight into the groundbreaking Terra-i system….

Apart from being the second largest forested area on the continent, the South American “Gran Chaco” region is also a biodiversity hotspot. Terra-i system has been able to track the alarming rates of habitat loss in Paraguayan Chaco (an increase of 388%, 2004-2011…

The endemic border dispute between Guatemala and Belize is no longer the unique fuel that drives the two countries’ popularity. Terra-i illustrates the contrasting scenarios surrounding deforestation on the Guatemala-Belize border between 2004 – 2010…

The Rio+20 U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development just recently ended. Forest were only mentioned in four paragraphs of thedraft text, and only then in vague references to biodiversity and conservation. Such indifference is truly worrying, given that during the last 20 years 300 million hectares of forest area were lost…

Terra-i, a system for near real time land cover or habitat change monitoring over Latin America, was launched during the controversial Rio+20 conference in Brazil. Mark Mulligan, of King’s College London, Louis Reymondin Ph.D supervisor, showed the power of the tool and potential applications during the multiple “Dialog days”…

The conversion of forests into agricultural and cattle ranching systems, emits important amounts of carbon to the atmosphere, increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases and thus, contributing to climate change. The loss of habitats in Latin America, as deforestation is an issue of concern for national governments, environmental organizations, scientists and citizens in general. This
[continue reading...]