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Using Digital Tools to Uncover Environmental Stories

Madeleine Ngeunga

Regional Editor - Africa

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What is happening in the forests around you?

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Forest destruction, wildlife trafficking…

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Why digital tools

  • Gain overview of specific areas
  • Collect & analyse large amounts of data
  • Gather evidence in the field
  • Understanding the root causes of forest change in different countries

Environmental issues are complex and interconnected from one country to another.

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It is an effective way of verifying facts, exploring insights and telling compelling stories about environment.

It allows you to deal with large scales of space and time!

Geo data in environmental stories

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Analyse Forest change and investigate trends in forest loss anywhere in the world

Data on land use, land cover, forest change over the years.

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Through a simple, chat-style interface, users can ask plain-language questions and receive clear, data-driven answers—complete with maps, statistics, and context.

Data on forest and land cover change

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Uses satellite imageries to deepen your research

Timber Hustling: Lia, a Thriving Hub for Congolese Mahogany Trafficked to Uganda, Kenya

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Planet Explorer (high res, not free)

https://www.planet.com/explorer/

Tips: Get free access through NICFI program

COPERNICUS BROWSER (free, but lower res)

https://browser.dataspace.copernicus.eu/

Google Earth Pro (free, desktop version)

https://www.google.com/earth/versions/#earth-pro

Sentinel Hub EO Browser

https://apps.sentinel-hub.com/eo-browser/

NASA Worldview

https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/

Protected Planet

https://www.protectedplanet.net/en

Global Forest Watch

https://www.globalforestwatch.org/

Natural Earth

https://www.naturalearthdata.com/

NASA Earth Data

https://earthdata.nasa.gov/��Resource Watch

https://resourcewatch.org/data/explore

Earth Map

https://earthmap.org/

Looking for satellite images

Where to find satellite images

Where to find geospatial data

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For more specific data on countries, EITI is a good place to go…55 countries covered

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Global Official Commodities Trade data with details by country…

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In this RIN story, the journalists visited the villages affected by the timber concession transformed into a palm oil plantation. We use used wikiloc to map distances and show villages’ proximity to the concession area on a map.

A digital tool to gather evidence in the field

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THANK YOU!