Ecology Ablaze

NASA signed an agreement with CCAD in 1998 to use its Earth-watching satellites - called the Earth Observing System - to help the corridor project. One outcome of this collaboration was a study using Landsat data from the 1990s that showed that the corridor was indeed protecting the forests. About 80% of forests inside the CBM still remained, compared with only about 31% outside the corridor. And annual forest clearing rates were 5.5 times higher outside the corridor than inside (1.44% versus 0.26%).

With help from the World Bank, the team also assembled an ecosystem map for all of Mesoamerica. The first of its kind to cover the entire region, this map shows in detail where the rain forests, lowlands, and croplands all lie - an invaluable tool for those managing the CBM.

These managers use the satellite data in other ways as well. For example, data from MODIS shows the location of burning fires in the entire region in near real-time (as in the image at the top of this article).

So far, however, the principal use of the satellite data has been as a political tool, according to Jorge Cabrera, the CCAD official in Central America handling the collaboration with NASA.

"In the case of the fires in the Petén and Yucatan regions this year, giving this information to the media succeeded in mobilizing more political, institutional, and public interest in the magnitude of the disaster," Cabrera said in an e-mail interview (translated from Spanish).

This photo was taken in Petén, Guatemala, by Daniel Irwin. Slash-and-burn agriculture destroys forests and wildlife.

In December, NASA signed a new agreement with the CCAD and the World Bank to continue the use of satellites for the corridor project, and to look into an innovative new way of making the satellite data available.

The concept they're considering is a live "dashboard" showing the state of the environment in Central America as seen by NASA satellites in near real-time, just as the dials on a car dashboard show the state of the car. A computing "pipeline" would be designed that would automatically gather the latest data from the satellites, process the raw data into a relevant and useful form, and present this user-friendly information to the people who need it: Central American politicians, civic leaders, and even local students.

"The information would be available in a timely manner for the Central American decision makers - the ministers, the people who are really making the calls about the environment down there," Irwin says.

After all, when the fires are ablaze, time is of the essence.