Environment

The Role of Technology in Forest Management

In Brazil’s Pará region, new roads are cutting through the pristine Amazon rainforest, opening up once-untouched areas to human activities. Expansive stretches of lush greenery are vanishing at an alarming pace, yielding to barren patches and freshly cleared land.

Meanwhile, far into space, the European Space Agency captures high-resolution satellite images of the region that unveil an important pattern: deforestation occurs predominantly near these newly constructed roads.

Back in 2016, it sparked a question: what if there were a tool to monitor these roads and forecast potential deforestation areas? Not long after PrevisIA was born.

In 2021, Microsoft with Vale Fund and the Amazon Institute for Man and the Environment (Imazon) developed a new AI tool called PrevisIA, to predict deforestation hotspots in the Amazon. Using satellite imagery from the European Space Agency and an algorithm developed by Imazon, the tool produces heat maps showing the most exposed conservation areas, Indigenous lands, and other settlements, along with rankings for states and municipalities.

Single-Photon Lidar

The Canadian Institute of Forestry in partnership with the Canadian Wood Fibre Centre and other organizations are currently researching the potential of single photon lidar for Ontario’s
Enhanced Forest Resource Inventory (EFI) at the Petawawa Research Forest (PRF).

What is Lidar?

A lidar (light detection and ranging) sensors will emit light pulses that will reflect or bounce off objects, such as standing trees or the ground. This measures the time of return and the distance that each pulse travels. The result is highly detailed 3-D point clouds of the forest environment.

Dr. Willy Burgdorfer: One Tick at a Time

Dr. Willy Burgdorfer, born on June 27, 1925, in Basel, Switzerland, is known for transforming the understanding of tick-borne illnesses.

Burgdorfer pursued his undergraduate and doctoral studies in parasitology and tropical bacteriology at the University of Basel – where he first developed his fascination with ticks while studying how these arthropods transmitted spirochetes that caused relapsing fever. In 1951, Burgdorfer moved to the United States for a fellowship in Montana at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML) – a National Institute of Health biomedical research facility for vector-borne diseases, such as Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Lyme disease and Q fever.

What Does Lyme Disease Do to Your Body?

What exactly is the connection between a tick bite and lyme disease?

While we’re not sure exactly where and when the disease originated, we do know a lot about how it works, its signs, its symptoms in humans and dogs, how it’s spread and its treatment.

Check out this video by Seeker to learn all about what lyme disease does to your body.

Tick-ing Time Bomb: The Expanding Threat of Tick-Borne Diseases

Urbanization, resistance to pesticides, and, most critically, climate change are creating ideal conditions for global tick proliferation. As these 8-legged bloodsuckers expand their territories, the world should expect a corresponding rise in Lyme disease, spotted fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, tick-borne encephalitis, and other conditions that infect humans, pets, and livestock.

“This is an epidemic in slow motion,” a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) tick expert and research, biologist told the Associated Press.

Ticks live on every continent except Antarctica, and while estimates of annual tick populations vary, the scientific community agrees that their numbers are growing. Researchers also are unanimous that arachnids pose an increasing health risk as mild winters and longer summers associated with global warming kill off fewer individuals, give them longer to develop and feed, and make higher elevations and northerly latitudes that previously were too intemperate or elevated more hospitable.

Lyme Disease Quick Facts

Lyme disease is one of the fastest growing infectious diseases in the country and one of the most difficult to diagnose. Experts in the medical and scientific community, as well as key legislators, have deemed Lyme disease an epidemic … a national public health crisis … and a growing threat.

300,000 people are infected with Lyme disease each yearAt least 300,000 people are infected with Lyme disease each year
New tick-borne diseases are emerging … the number of tick endemic regions is growing … the tick population is increasing … and, the number of people infected with Lyme disease is steadily rising.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that at least 300,000 people are infected with Lyme disease each year in the United States. That’s 25,000 new cases per month. Twenty-five percent of those patients are children, ages 5 to 14.

Information and Infographic obtained from https://danielcameronmd.com/.

Thomas Dambo: The Master of Upcycled Urban Sculptures

Thomas Dambo, born in Odense, Denmark in 1979, grew up in a creative and communal environment. From a young age, Dambo was encouraged to explore his creativity, building his first wooden box for his brother’s pacifier and scavenging materials to construct massive fortresses with his friends.

As a teenager, Dambo delved into street art, urban exploration, and graffiti. His passion for urban culture and hip-hop led him to become a beatboxer, touring with Norwegian rapper Skranglebein. In 2004, he formed the hip-hop super crew Fler Farver with his younger brother and friends, releasing nine albums and gaining significant recognition in the Danish underground hip-hop scene.

Jerry Franklin: The Father of New Forestry

Jerry Franklin, known as the “Father of New Forestry,” has made his mark in forest management for integrating ecological and economic objectives. His approaches, which faced skepticism initially, have become the standard in both environmental and timber industry circles.

Franklin began his career as a research forester for the USDA Forest Service in 1959. His early work included long-term experiments on forest ecosystems, particularly old-growth forests.

Chimpanzees May Self-Medicate With Plants, Using the Forest as a Pharmacy

Chimpanzees may be using the forest like their own personal pharmacy. When they’re sick, the primates appear to seek out and eat plants with antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties, according to new research.

Observers have long suspected that chimpanzees use plants to self-medicate. Now, a new paper published last week in the journal PLOS ONE offers more evidence in support of this idea.

Researchers followed two groups of wild chimpanzees through Uganda’s Budongo Forest for eight months. They recorded what the animals ate, as well as whether they were sick—which they determined by checking their feces for parasites, testing their urine for elevated levels of immune cells and looking for wounds.

Shrinking Forests, Emerging Diseases

Dona Dora’s man is away from home a lot more these days. It didn’t used to be like that.

He leaves early, sometimes on foot, but increasingly on his bicycle, and heads into the forests surrounding Belém, the capital of Brazil’s Para province. He keeps his eyes open especially for five medicinal plants that are always in demand — sucuúba (Himatanthus sucuuba), copaíba (Copaifera spp.), andiroba (Carapa guianensis), barbatimão (Stryphnodendron spp.) and pãu d’arco (Tabebuia avellanedae).

Fifteen years earlier, he would have found all five within hours and been back for lunch, but times have changed. These days, medicinal forest plants in high demand are becoming harder to find as forests that have stood strong for millennia are cleared to make way for grazing pastures for millions of cattle, agriculture, and development.

Now, Dona Dora’s man can spend a whole day and not find more than a few plants. It might be late at night before he gets back home.