What is Bunjil Forest Watch for?
To alert locals when ‘illegal’ deforestation occurs.
A free public citizen-to-citizen service to detect recent disturbances to forest canopy.
Not a government or forestry department service
For areas where forest governance is lacking
Who’s it for?
For non-expert conservation groups and people living in remote forest locations
Local’s may not have time, bandwidth or equipment for viewing complex images, they may not have the capacity to respond to the deforestation, and their safety cannot be assumed.
How it works
Locals or Conservation groups register their local area when they subscribe to the service.
Bunjil Forest Watch regularly checks for new satellite images covering that area.
When Bunjil finds new images covering their area it notifies a Volunteer to check for recent disturbances to the forest canopy. It helps the volunteer detect these changes.
Volunteers review the latest images of an area and compare with older images. They mark-up any recent changes observed, like new roads or clearings.
Bunjil emails the local group who can respond to the disturbance as they see fit.
Volunteers are encouraged to participate with routine observations of satellite images as they are released.
The volunteer observers need not be experts nor have any other connection with the local group other than a common desire to preserve the forest.
If a Volunteer detects a change in the forest, they create a report which the precise location of the disturbance. The app sends it to locals on the ground.
Volunteers review the latest images of an area and compare with older images. They mark-up any recent changes observed, such as new roads or clearings. Bunjil captures the time and coordinates of the change and sends a concise email to the local group.
The local group responds to the observed threats as they see fit.
More About Bunjil Forest Watch
Read More
Please note, this is a ‘proof of concept’ or research prototype. While the software is functional it is not robust or completely tested. Consider everything ‘Beta’.
Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence.
Community Forest Watch 