Amazon Conservation Team and DigitalGlobe Form Innovative Partnership

Amazon Conservation Team and DigitalGlobe Form Innovative Partnership to Advance Forest Conservation and Protection of Endangered Isolated Communities Across Amazonia

The Amazon Conservation Team is pleased to announce a partnership with DigitalGlobe that will allow for the use of the world’s highest quality commercial satellite imagery to strengthen ACT’s community-based conservation efforts in the diverse ecosystems of the Amazon rainforest.

DigitalGlobe’s advanced remote sensing capabilities and vast archive of high-resolution satellite imagery are invaluable tools for ACT’s conservation initiatives in Colombia and Suriname, which can encompass millions of hectares of forestlands. DigitalGlobe’s imagery has been a vital tool in ACT’s ongoing initiative to protect uncontacted and isolated tribes living in remote corners of the Amazon rainforest. This innovative partnership has led to a non-invasive method to confirm the presence of uncontacted tribes and determine their likely territorial extent and land use in order to help ensure their continued protection from a variety of external threats to which they are extremely vulnerable.

Isolated indigenous maloca (longhouse) found using DigitalGlobe satellite imagery.

ACT is also utilizing DigitalGlobe imagery to monitor deforestation patterns and map remaining patches of Amazon rainforest in order to create sustainably managed conservation corridors connecting existing protected areas with indigenous territories. The imagery has proven instrumental in the creation of sustainable management plans of indigenous territories, helping to ensure the continued conservation of some of the most intact remaining forests.

“Even today, high-resolution satellite imagery is still a significantly underutilized resource in rainforest conservation, and so ACT is thrilled to partner with DigitalGlobe, a clear leader in making such images available globally,” states ACT President Dr. Mark Plotkin.

“We are proud to work with the Amazon Conservation Team on this initiative to protect Amazonian tribes,” said Jeffrey R. Tarr, CEO of DigitalGlobe. “Understanding and monitoring the geographies in which these tribes live can help ensure both the people and the environment are sustained, and this in turn aligns with DigitalGlobe’s purpose of Seeing a Better World™.”

Biocultural conservation corridor mapped with ACT's partner indigenous communities and DigitalGlobe satellite imagery.

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The Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) (www.amazonteam.org), an NGO based in Arlington, VA, partners with indigenous people to protect the rainforest. ACT works primarily in the northwest and northeast Amazon, with conservation capacity building as a primary strategy. DigitalGlobe (www.digitalglobe.com) is a leading global provider of commercial high resolution earth imagery products and services; it is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol DGI.

For more information, contact: 
Megan Morrison, Development Co
Amazon Conservation Team
703-522-4684
mmorrison@amazonteam.org

Nancy S. Coleman, Senior Director, Corporate Communications 
DigitalGlobe
303-684-1674
Nancy.Coleman@DigitalGlobe.com