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Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for September - October 2024

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for September - October 2024

Category: Illegal-logging, News

Data: 13.11.24

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for September - October 2024

In September - October, experts of the NGO ForestCom conducted monitoring of forest areas with an area of 17,646.9 hectares - that is, 1,434 valuable forest territories from the point of view of nature protection. By old growth forests, we mean high conservation value forest sites that received such status in accordance with the Ukrainian legislation.

For monitoring of the identified sites, ForestCom uses composites of the best least-cloudy images from PlanetScope and RapidEye satellites, available for viewing in Planet Basemaps. For the designated monitoring area, 139 tiles were utilized, acquired throughout the month, with an average spatial resolution of 4.77 meters. This composite was pre-processed for visual analysis. Note that images in Planet Basemaps are distributed in the form of GeoTIFF file grids referred to as “base map tiles” or simply “tiles”. Each tile’s size is 4096x4096 pixels. This composite was pre-processed for visual analysis.

Since the monitoring was conducted through visual analysis, limited by the resolution of satellite images. Hence, selective low-intensity logging may not be identified using such a method.

September 2024

Fig. 1. Composite of Planet Basemaps satellite images for September - October 2024 over the monitoring area in Carpathians, Ukraine. Monitored sites are marked in yellow.

A total of 1434 sites covering an area of 17646,9 hectares were analyzed using this method in September - October. This accounts for 100% of the designated number of sites for monitoring. No changes in the forest cover were detected.

October 2024

Fig. 1. Composite of Planet Basemaps satellite images for September - October 2024 over the monitoring area in Carpathians, Ukraine. Monitored sites are marked in yellow and those that were covered by shadows are marked in red.

In autumn, the sun is lower above the horizon compared to the summer months. This leads to the fact that the angle of incidence of the sun's rays becomes smaller, creating longer shadows on the mountain slopes. Therefore, in October, 1314 areas with an area of 16651 hectares were analyzed using this method in the Ukrainian Carpathians, which is 91.63% of the number of areas designated for monitoring. No changes in the forest cover were detected.

The monitoring was carried out within the project "Combating illegal logging in Ukraine" with the support of the International Programs of the US Forest Service.

To study previous reports on satellite monitoring of old growth forests changes, please refer to:

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for August 2024

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for July 2024

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for June 2024

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for May 2024

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for April 2024

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for March 2024

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for February 2024

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for January 2024

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for December2023

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for June-November 2023

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for May 2023