In a recent Forbes article, Jamie Hailstone looks at deforestation.
The fight against climate change increasingly focuses on protecting and planting trees to combat deforestation, which releases large amounts of carbon dioxide. In 2021, 25 million hectares of forests were lost, emitting 10 gigatons of CO2.
Various measures, such as an EU law blocking deforestation-linked products and the UK timber industry's net-zero roadmap, aim to address this issue. Technology, including satellite monitoring and sensors, plays a crucial role in preventing illegal logging and wildfires.
At Dryad, we plan to install 120 million solar-powered early-warning sensors globally by 2030 to combat man-made wildfires, responsible for up to 20% of global CO2 emissions. Also featured in the article are UK-based startup iov42 and Singapore's Double Helix Tracking Technologies, who are testing a digital platform using distributed ledger technology to address deforestation in commodity supply chains, aiding compliance with environmental regulations. The initiative seeks to support sustainability targets for organizations importing into the UK and aligns with similar legislation in the EU and the proposed US Forest Act.
“We want to eliminate human-induced wildfires, but we can only address this if solutions are deployed on a grand scale. All countries must work together to share data communicating the full impacts of wildfires to ensure the extent of the damage is fully understood.”
- Carsten Brinkschulte, Dryad CEO and Co-founder