For my placement, I will be working with the Azuero Earth Project (AEP), an organization located on Panama’s Azuero Peninsula that focuses on reforestation, habitat restoration, sustainable land use and environmental education.

Reforestation projects in the Azuero region of Panama often face multiple threats such as fire use due to cultural reasons and harvesting.  Having an idea of what geographic areas and time periods are most vulnerable to fire can be beneficial to protecting AEP’s reforestation efforts.

Global Forest Watch have produced tools to monitor fire-related threats on a global level.  AEP activated Global Forest Watch fire and harvest alerts over the dry season in 2018 and registered fire and harvesting threats on the peninsula.  The GFW data is a global dataset, so the extent to which they work in registering forest threats at the local level still need to be investigated.  I will be working on fire detection during the 2018 dry season using high resolution images limited to the Azuero region, then I will create maps of actual fire and harvest distributions.

Some secondary projects I will be working on involve my design and spatial analysis skills. I will redesign the Azuero map using my cartography knowledge and design skills, design infographics for AEP, and create a Collector App by using ArcGIS to allow researchers to collect plant information in the field in an accessible way.

I look forward to heading to Pedasi soon to work with a motivated, international group of people doing important work, and to use my remote sensing knowledge and skills in a practical setting.