DUBLIN, Ireland -- Dublin based company Celestial Green Ventures (CGV) has published a report on the “Independent Verification of PRODES Forest Change Data” that concludes with positive results for the Brazilian government project.

179,000 ha of CGV’s Trocano Araretama Conservation Project, based in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest, was chosen to be used as a sample area for analysis because it is an area where considerable deforestation has been detected in the past by PRODES. By comparing satellite data, the report found that 96.1% of the area’s overall deforestation was detected by the Brazilian satellite and that no false positives were observed. This assessment indicates that the PRODES data is an accurate and suitable method for estimating deforestation.

CGV’s Environmental Analyst Leah Gainey has written the report, which compares deforestation satellite imagery from PRODES with the higher resolution data imagery from RapidEye (now known as BlackBridge), in order to allow the company’s Trocano Araretama project identify any potential undetected emissions and account for them when quantifying detected deforestation within the project area.

By verifying the satellite’s accuracy, CGV is able to provide new information to the Natural Forest Standard (whose conservation methodology the Trocano Araretama project adheres to) about the level of adjustment required for undetected deforestation when utilising the PRODES satellite data for project monitoring.

Ciaran Kelly, CEO of Celestial Green Ventures, commented “The use of geospatial data such as PRODES is core to our annual verification, and therefore it was important to analyse the accuracy of the data provided. Combined with community-based monitoring, this data helps us to allocate our resources most effectively.”

The PRODES verification report was released yesterday and is available to download from CGV’s reports page at the following link:

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Kristen Baird