The Borneo Atlas

Dr. David Gaveau combines satellites, drones and field investigations to study the impacts of humans on Earth’s land surface. He maps tropical deforestation, forest degradation and regeneration, agricultural developments, and landscape fires, and he also investigates the effectiveness of forest conservation interventions in Southeast Asia in reducing deforestation and fires.

A scientist with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), he joins us to discuss the Borneo Atlas, which among other things, allows everyone to view for themselves, forty-two years of forest degradation (from 1973-2015) by the logging industry, and conversion to industrial oil palm and pulpwood plantations. The Atlas also helps distinguish plantation companies who practiced deforestation from those who avoided it.