This October, Global Forest Watch sent me to Tarapoto, Peru, to give a two-day journalist training in partnership with Ojo Público. We covered the basics of satellite mapping, how to use the free, open-source Global Forest Watch platform to identify and create data-driven stories, and focused on the new Forest Watcher mobile application.
After a day of focusing on digital satellite maps as incredible reporting tools, we traveled to a village in the Amazon basin, where we interviewed community members and farmers who had been impacted by the local boom in palm oil production. We likewise trekked into the forest and into plantations to map deforestation in real time, using Forest Watcher’s offline capabilities.
