Leveraging Satellite-Based Solutions for Illegal Logging

Learn how satellite technology can be used to address illegal logging and help ensure compliance with regulations.

Illegal logging presents a major global environmental challenge. This unlawful activity contributes significantly to deforestation, biodiversity loss, and climate change. Since forestry crime tends to take place in remote locations, it often evades detection. Fortunately, advancements in Earth observation (EO) technology is making it easier for authorities to combat this issue.

Planet provides high-frequency satellite imagery and data that offer a solution for illegal logging by helping officials monitor change across vast areas and respond quickly to criminal activity.

As more government agencies and organizations adopt satellite monitoring for illegal logging, the world’s collective ability to protect forests will improve. Let’s look at how this technology enables faster detection, more targeted enforcement, and a more proactive approach to conserving forest ecosystems.

Understanding the Scale and Impact of Illegal Logging

Governments face significant challenges in monitoring immense forest areas for potentially illicit activity. Not only are logging sites often remote, but limited resources and infrastructure also increase the difficulty of detecting environmental crime.

Recent efforts by the Brazilian Federal Police illustrate the scale of these challenges and the value of satellite imagery in addressing them. As part of Brazil’s Ministry of Justice and Public Safety (MJSP), the Brazilian Federal Police are responsible for preventing and addressing criminal activity across the Amazon region. The size, terrain, and complexity of this region pose immense enforcement challenges.

The MJSP contracted Planet technology partner SCCON Geospatial to build a global satellite imagery alert system to help the Federal Police investigate and fight environmental crimes. SCCON used Planet data to create a custom platform with change-detection alerts that notify authorities of changes in forest cover within days.

With near-daily forest change alerts across Brazil, the Brazilian Federal Police have reduced fieldwork, and cases now take less than six months from detection to resolution.

In addition, the Brazilian government has expanded access to the SCCON platform to over 450 institutions and over 96,000 users across the government through RedeMAIS (Brasil MAIS Program Network), an ecosystem for sharing data, information, and unique knowledge of the entire national territory.¹

How Planet Satellite Imagery and Analytics Enhances the Detection of Criminal Activity and Supports Compliance

Satellite technology is a powerful tool for environmental crime detection because it offers timely, accurate, and comprehensive views of vast and remote areas, making enforcement and conservation efforts much more effective.

Planet offers a range of capabilities to identify change at scale. PlanetScope^®Monitoring provides a near-daily scan of the Earth, giving decision-makers a broad and continuous view of change.

In addition, Planet Road and Building Change Detection helps uncover infrastructure development in previously untouched areas, which are often early warning signs of illegal logging operations or environmental encroachment.

When change is detected, high-resolution Planet Tasking can be used to get a more detailed view of a specific area and gather evidence.

And when all of these capabilities are used with the Planet Archive, which includes proprietary datasets back to 2009 and public datasets back to 1972, analysts can look back and establish baselines to identify historical trends.

Together, these products allow agencies to look broader, back, closer, and deeper to gather actionable insights.

Benefits of Satellite-Based Solutions for Civil Government Decision-Makers

Planet imagery, data, and analytics offer many benefits to agencies tasked with identifying illegal logging, including:

• Time and resource efficiency: Satellite monitoring reduces the need for frequent, labor-intensive field inspections, saving time and resources. Instead, governments can monitor vast areas remotely, cutting operational costs while conducting continuous surveillance.
  
  
• Improved enforcement accuracy: High-resolution satellite imagery enables accurate detection of illegal activities, supporting more effective regulation enforcement and quicker, more targeted responses.
  
  
• Long-term data analysis: Archival imagery allows governments to track trends and make better decisions over time. And when combined with Planet Analytic Feeds, the detection of change over time can be automated.

All of these benefits make satellite technology an invaluable tool for strengthening environmental management and improving regulatory enforcement.

Future Trends in Satellite-Based Environmental Monitoring

As satellite-based monitoring becomes more prevalent in today’s society, what can we expect moving forward? Anticipated trends include:

• Improved resolution in satellite technology: Improved resolution and more frequent data collection will allow authorities to monitor forested areas more precisely and respond faster to suspected illegal logging and deforestation.
  
  
• AI and machine learning integration: AI-driven algorithms are expected to improve the efficiency of object recognition and satellite data analysis, allowing officials to detect subtle land-use changes, new structures, and vegetation shifts, act quickly, and be proactive at the outset.
  
  
• Improved road detection algorithms: Ongoing innovations in road detection will offer more accurate tracking of human activities in hard-to-reach areas.
  
  
• Broader adoption across regions and governments: These advancements make satellite monitoring more accessible and practical for governments worldwide. They will ultimately help it expand its use in global efforts to protect sustainable development and enforce environmental regulations.

Satellite Imagery Successfully Defends Global Forests

Identifying illegal logging across vast and densely forested areas has been a decades-long and arduous battle for governments. But near-real-time satellite imagery and analytics can help agencies spot land use changes that signal deforestation — and stay one step ahead of environmental destruction.

Interested in learning how Planet’s advanced EO data can help protect your country’s natural resources? Contact us today.

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_{1. For the most recent program data, please see https://plataforma-pf.sccon.com.br/#/reports.}