Recently, the World Meteorological Organization reported that the carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere were at a level of 405 parts per million, higher than they have been in over 3 million years.  If the global community does not act promptly these levels will continue to rise reaching a catastrophic global warming crisis.  Greta Thunberg, a young climate change activist stated, “We are facing an existential threat. This is the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced.”  The United Nations has enacted several means of attacking this issue.  One of these means is through reforestation.  Another is through the protection of standing forests.  One way of providing incentive for landowners to protect their forests is through the Forest Carbon Credits program.

The Forest Carbon Credits program is a way of providing landowners financial reimbursement for the carbon absorbed by the trees on their plots of property.  Every tree on earth absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as it grows.  Research has proven that through the protection of forests and reforestation, global warming can be combated.  The problem is finding a way to measure how much carbon a forest absorbs, the forest carbon offset, so landowners can receive their Carbon Credits.

The process for measuring a forest carbon offset is very time consuming.  It requires individuals to manually count the number of trees per lot, then measure the width and height of each tree.  These numbers are then used to calculate the carbon offset.  However, a new organization, Pachama, is working on ways of improving this verification process.

Headquartered out of San Fransisco, CA, Pachama is an organization that is using technology to speed up the Forest Carbon Credits market.  According to their mission statement, “Our ultimate intention is to help scale up the protection and restoration of the forests of the planet, which recapture carbon from the atmosphere reversing climate change, and are the holders of the planet’s biodiversity, keystones for maintaining planetary homeostasis.”  The way they are doing this is with the help of satellites, drones, and Lidar images. 

Pachama (named after the Andean Mother Earth Goddess “Pachamama”) uses a four step process to precisely calculate carbon offsets.  The first step is to use high definition satellite images to estimate a forest’s carbon storage, the potential for reforestation, and the prediction of deforestation.  The second step uses a drone equipped with Lidar to generate detailed measurements of the biomass of a plot of forest.  The final two steps utilize deep learning software to analyze the data, and then make the data available on an auditable platform.

Diego Saez-Gil, co founder of Pachama, is confident that the collaboration of the satellites and drones will prove a viable means of collecting this data, influencing more to protect forests and collect their Carbon Credits.  With over 2 billion hectares of forestable land on the planet, the planting and protection pf these lands can greatly change global warming.  As the 14 Dali Lama wrote to the participants of the 2018 UN Climate Change Conference, “Climate change is not a concern of just one or two nations. It is an issue that affects all humanity, and every living being on this earth. This beautiful place is our only home. We have to take serious action now to protect our environment and find constructive solutions to global warming.”