Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for July 2024

In July, experts of the NGO ForestCom conducted monitoring of forest areas with an area of 17,646.9 hectares - that is, 1,434 valuable forest territories from the point of view of nature protection. 

By old growth forests, we mean high conservation value forest sites that received such status in accordance with the Ukrainian legislation.

For monitoring of the identified sites, ForestCom uses composites of the best least-cloudy images from PlanetScope and RapidEye satellites, available for viewing in Planet Basemaps. For the designated monitoring area, 139 tiles were utilized, acquired throughout the month, with an average spatial resolution of 4.77 meters. This composite was pre-processed for visual analysis.

Note that images in Planet Basemaps are distributed in the form of GeoTIFF file grids referred to as “base map tiles” or simply “tiles”. Each tile’s size is 4096x4096 pixels.

Fig. 1. Composite of Planet Basemaps satellite images for July 2024 over the monitoring area in Carpathians, Ukraine. Monitored sites are marked in yellow, while those obscured by clouds are marked in red.

A total of 1428  sites covering an area of 17384,6 hectares were analyzed using this method in June. This accounts for 99,58% of the designated number of sites for monitoring. Full examination was hindered by high cloud cover and snow cover. No changes in the forest cover were detected.

Based on the analysis, no changes in the forest cover were detected.

Since the monitoring was conducted through visual analysis, limited by the resolution of satellite images. Hence, selective low-intensity logging may not be identified using such a method. 

The monitoring was carried out within the project "Combating illegal logging in Ukraine" with the support of the International Programs of the US Forest Service.

To study previous reports on satellite monitoring of old growth forests changes, please refer to:

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for June 2024

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for May 2024

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for April 2024

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for March 2024

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for February 2024

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for January 2024

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for December2023

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for June-November 2023

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for May 2023

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for April 2023

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for March 2023

Monitoring report old growth changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for January 2023

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for December 2022

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for November 2022

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for October 2022

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for September 2022

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for August 2022

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for July 2022

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for June 2022

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for May 2022

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for February-March 2022

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for January 2022