Google DeepMind has released a forest map called ForTy. Now, a forest map probably doesn’t sound like much at first. But the interesting part is that it’s trying to tell the dif…

Google DeepMind has released a forest map called ForTy. Now, a forest map probably doesn’t sound like much at first. But the interesting part is that it’s trying to tell the difference between a natural forest, a plantation, and trees being grown as crops. Because if somebody cuts down a natural forest and replaces it with a plantation, you can still look at that area and see a whole lot of trees. That doesn’t mean you’ve kept the same habitat or replaced what was there. Just measuring how much land has trees on it can leave out a pretty important part of the story. This maps those differences at a 10-meter resolution, and they’ve also put out an early dataset covering changes from 2017 through 2025. So you can start looking at what changed over time, instead of just what the place looks like now. I’ve talked before about AI helping in other fields, and this is the kind of thing I mean. There are people using it to work through problems most of us aren’t even thinking about when a new model comes out. The data is openly available through Earth Engine, too, so other researchers can actually use it. Here’s their explanation: https://t.co/v7pYIlrxLk