IMHO: Google Earth & Illegal Logging Monitoring in Malaysia

Google Earth. Just downloaded today after reading an article about it in the Star newspaper. What caught my attention while reading this article is that Google Earth can be use to monitor illegal logging, quoted as below:

 “There’s a useful function which allows us to do a time lapse observation by comparing older satellite images with recent ones,” he told The Star yesterday. Lim Teck Wyn, a forestry consultant, said this helped to detect recent logging activities as the change in forest mass would be obvious. However, he stressed that there was no substitute for ground checks as Google Earth images are not al­­ways recent or detailed. WWF-Malaysia chief executive officer and executive director Datuk Dr Dionysius Sharma said Google Earth was helpful in calculating an overview of forest loss or land changes. “It helps us to see whether the Go­­vernment is keeping its pledge to maintain 50% of the country’s land mass under forest cover,” he said.

IMHO, Google Earth does not facilitate to detect recent logging activities as the change in forest mass would be obvious. For instance, illegal logging of an area larger than 10 hectares in Malaysia is highly unlikely to happen without the knowledge of either local authorities, forest licensee or even to the public. Because it would need more than just chainsaw and a couple of men to go into the forest and cut up some trees. Besides that, current logistics and roads to the forest area are limited and regularly checked. Although in the article it did mentioned that there was no substitute to ground check as Google Earth images are not always recent or detailed; but the verdict here is  the article gave a more general implications that  illegal logging can be monitor regularly with Google Earth. 

What actually  contributes to illegal logging in Malaysia are not the massive or large operation that can be capture by google earth, rather it occur in a smaller scale, patches, or lack of monitoring harvesting contractors to concurrently harvest the area exceeding the legal boundaries. 

I wouldn't disagree that Google Earth can be use to monitor forest mass or land changes. As stated in the article, it can be a tool for the government to monitor that there are remaining 50% of forest cover in Malaysia.  What would be the catch is that agricultural or plantation land area such as rubber and oil palm contributes as part of the 50 % of the forest cover in Malaysia. 

So much of changes in Google Earth since the last time I use it. It would be a good database to work on for TNC Lite or Arc View for forest licensee to update regularly their land use map. A little tour I did when I downloaded Google Earth. When you open Google Earth, there are 2 columns; the one on the right  shows a good panoramic visual to the site you wish you see. In the right column, there are 2 functions, one is a time lapse observation where you can compare recent satellite images and the older ones and the second one is an eye alteration notification that tells you the distance between your eye level and the view on the map.  On the left side column, you can opt to view features (or primary database) such as borders, labels, places, photos, panoramio etc. You can read more about the features in the wikipedia.

I do not really understand how the time lapse observation works with the interval of one hour. Take for example, I print screen an image of Sabah at 2.40pm and another at 3.59 pm. There are virtually no difference between the image captured at 2.40pm and 3.59pm. Not even the cloud distribution.

2.40 pm

3.59 pm

Unless, you noticed the difference, can you tell me? ;)