Liberia: Economics of Nature: Mapping Liberia's Ecosystems to Understand Their Value

Mar 15, 2021 | Sofie Bates, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
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Conservation scientist Trond Larsen and his team trekked through a remote forest in Liberia, recording the plants, animals, and insects that they saw. They noted whether the forest was intact or degraded. Far above their heads, NASA's Earth-observing satellites collected data about the terrain as the satellites continued their well-traveled orbits over Africa. The data collected by the team and the satellites will be used by the Liberian government and the global non-profit Conservation International to factor the country's natural resources and ecosystems into its economic planning. This process is known as ecosystem accounting and helps to meet the standards outlined in the United Nation's System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA).