Marcos Terán has worked in and around the Matos River in Bolivia for years, collecting data and collaborating with local communities as part of his organization’s conservation initiatives. Designated a Ramsar site because of its importance as a wetland habitat, the Matos is a mosaic of wetlands, forests and pastures, making it a complex ecosystem to study and monitor. Oftentimes, high-resolution data can be hard to come by, particularly for the non-forest parts of the region. “The dynamics to conserve this complex landscape are very complicated,” Terán, executive director of nonprofit Conservación Amazónica–ACEAA, told Mongabay in a video interview. “Data and maps of deforestation in the Amazon Basin usually only emphasize the changes in the forest. Changes in savannas and wetlands are often not detected.” Since October, however, the organization has had access to data that have helped them fill those gaps. High-resolution satellite imagery is now helping Conservación Amazónica create a baseline map to characterize and monitor wetland health, monitor agriculture-driven deforestation, and keep a check on their sustainable cattle-grazing initiative. “We can now get data on the interaction between grassland and forests and information about carbon at this ecotone transition,” Terán said. “We are also looking forward to analyzing the data on humidity and temperature of the land surface because it is very difficult to get that data for grasslands and wetland.” Conservación Amazónica is among eight organizations around the world now getting these data as part of a new initiative launched by Earth-imaging company Planet. As part…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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