Map large trees in protected areas
Due to their size, large crowns indicate old age and stable environmental conditions. They therefore may be an indicator of low disturbance and a surrogate for high levels of biodiversity.
However:
- No such database of large trees exists;
- Understanding patterns of large tree distribution may help us
to prioritize inventory and conservation in an environment which is
undergoing rapid change;
- The distribution of large crowns may also tell us more about
current and historic disturbance regimes across the Amazon
basin.
Spend a few hours looking closely at any protected area covered by
high resolution imagery in Google Earth and use the built-in tools
to mark the large crowns for that area.
- Mark only those crowns that fall completely outside the 40m
circle (i.e. are larger than the circle);
- Do a tile at a time and mark tiles done as you go along;
- Do only tiles that are completely covered by high resolution
imagery.
N.B. You must have Google Earth installed on your computer
Join our large tree mapping effort
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