Making foresters keep their promises

Hi everyone and welcome to Space Cowboys. Herbert. Hi, Thijs. Hey, how's it going? Very good. Yeah, awesome. This week we're going to talk about something that's not necessarily space related, it's more Earth related, right? We're keeping it close to the Earth. It's being done from space. Yeah, exactly. We're using, we're going to use space. That's right. Well, not us, but Niels, our guest today. Hey Niels. Hi everyone. He's from Satelligence. Explain quickly what you do. Well, and his last name. Willard. Willard. Willard. Willard in Dutch. Yes, Niels Wielaard. Satelligence, what we are doing. We are a satellite data analytics company and we focus specifically on making commodity production more sustainable. What do you mean? With commodities we mean, for example, agricultural commodities like palm oil, soy and cocoa. And we use space technology to see the performance and the impact of these commodities in the landscape. So you're looking from space if farmers or, well, coconut companies perform, behave decently. Okay, is that a way to put it? Indeed, part of the story. Yeah. We use a lot of satellite data from all over the world to zoom into areas where these kind of crops are produced. So using machine learning, we know then, okay, is this a cocoa crop or is this palm oil or something else? And then we monitor, we go back in the past, for example, to see when this patch of land was deforested, for example. Do you get an alert when a forest is cut down? Indeed, that is what we're working on. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really? Yeah. So the trick then is not to cause too many alerts because otherwise it's not actionable. So it's also part of the job. Okay. But do you then just go to the country in question and say like, hey, they're cutting down a forest right now? Well, thanks for the internet. We have presence in the countries where these commodities are grown and we focus especially on tropical. Forest regions. So there we have people in Bolivia, in Ghana, in Jakarta who have very good relations with a whole network of users. So it's not that we can do everything from space alone. We need to be clever and use the satellites and our presence on the ground together with local partners to do something about the sustainability. And how big of a problem is it, deforestation? Well, it is. It's a very big problem, especially for beef, palm oil and other crops. And what we want to do is to show that there's a lot of companies who have made commitments with companies. I mean, the producers, the growers, the traders and even consumer goods brands that have made commitments to reduce the deforestation. And with the satellites, we want to show that there is progress made. And in some parts of the world, there's indeed progress made in many other parts. There's still a lot of work to do. Yeah. And when you talk about progress, what is progress? Well, in this specific case, progress means that we can see from the satellite time series. So every day, new imagery comes in, which we analyze in an automated way. And then we can detect trends. So we can see if the deforestation is going up for a specific area or if it's remaining the same or if it's decreasing. And yeah, those trends, we can zoom into specific areas. From suppliers of companies to see how well they're doing. Yeah. You said it's because of beef and because of, I believe, before the show, you said cocoa? Cocoa, yeah. Cocoa, sorry. For our chocolate. Yeah, for chocolate. Palm oil. Palm oil, of course. Forever a big problem. So it seems that this has not actually cut the jungle for its wood. It's being replaced by agriculture. Exactly. Yeah. And how big of a problem is that? Well, it is a big problem. because forests are critical for biodiversity, global biodiversity, critical for carbon stocks to fight climate change. You want to keep the carbon in the trees, for water sheds, and for the livelihoods of many people who depend on these forests. Not to mention biodiversity. Exactly. So that's why we've seen in so many areas of the world the fast conversion to other land uses. And consumers are also voicing their concerns and they want to have certified products. And so I think the problem is broadly recognized these days, even by financial institutions and many other stakeholders. Yeah. You're saying that people depend on these woods as well for their livelihood. Yet the idea would be that they have some sort of economic development going on where they think that the forest can make more money if you replace it by a monoculture. Exactly. And where we want to help from space is to get the right balance. Okay. Because in the end, of course, everyone needs, the world needs palm oil. It's a very area efficient oil crop. We do need palm oil. We do need palm oil. Yes, definitely. Because it's sort of being demonized as well. It's like, oh my God, this contains palm oil. You know, you shouldn't even buy it or whatever. Yeah. But as you say, a lot of the millions of farmers around the world are dependent. And they're depending for their livelihoods also on palm oil. Yeah. So it's not something that we can just push aside. And we have to be smart in balancing the land use, making sure that the critical forest areas remain as such and that expansion is done in existing degraded lands, agricultural lands. And that's something that we can detect from space to guide these developments. That's why we were. I was a researcher, I was sogar 판국ing the it's very crucial. Because if you look at stories like that from the point of view, and it was around the world in the first billion years, if you're interested, and these who are global or global European world. You can see how it affected the fact replace other types of oil that that's what i believe so sunflower oil and olive oil or no oil yeah the quality is very very good so the quality is good yeah and it's a recent thing right with palm oil it's something like the last 15 well yeah but over these this period indeed there has been a boom in uh in increasing land use for this kind of crops that's true yeah and can you do that can you grow palm trees sustainably yes uh there are very good uh certification uh schemes like the round table sustainable palm oil they set up criteria and indicators for responsible sustainable palm oil and that is also uh these kind of schemes uh we are using the satellite technology to see whether the producers are in compliance with these regulations to see whether they indeed uh grow their crops and this may be slightly outside of your business but people in in third world countries may complain that the west is imposing on them standards that the west didn't impose upon itself when it deforested its own land you know so um is that something that you see happening well we hear that argument uh quite frequently yeah but um there's also a good case to be made that the west is imposing on them standards that the west is imposing on them standards that the west is imposing on them standards that the west is making for uh for healthy living environment so using that argument to to just clear all the forests you mean in the in the countries involved exactly healthy living environment yeah so they have a point but uh it's all about in my opinion about having the proper balance between development and having all these uh this agriculture very important but also to then uh consider and protect the remaining biodiversity areas forest areas yeah yeah which is of course uh in the interest of the world as a whole exactly at least that's how we view this yes in the west yes oh you're so naive oh yeah excuse me no no no definitely no i fully support it it's uh what i'm thinking about is who is this information for because for some reason i have this idea that deforestation happens because of illegal actions so maybe criminals go into a forest and just cutting it all down or you know looting it for whatever treasures it may may hold whether it's the wood or the animals that live there but i understand from you the idea that it's almost conscious development uh into areas where it shouldn't and it's so so who wants who wants your information because i can imagine that if and if a government is developing they're also maybe not waiting for you to say like hey you know don't cut down that forest so who wants your information most yeah that's also an interesting part of our work uh from space we can detect trends and see where deforestation is happening where specific crops are grown but also forest is regrowing uh so all the dynamics in the landscape we can see and then to know if something is legal or illegal uh then we need to have say land use information like administrative boundaries whether there are certain boundaries where in the future a new development is planned for example and by combining that information with our satellite information we can see whether specific areas are cleared legally or illegally and the type of users basically we work with the whole uh spectrum of users of organizations involved in in in land use and forests for example starting with the producers farmer corporations but also big what they call estate companies that have huge plantations of oil palm for example um to traders so in the supply chain you have the growers then you have the traders uh who uh yeah gather all the producers so to say in mills and then they further produce it for consumer goods brands then there's investors that invest these kind of enterprises then we have the environmental ngos some of them are campaigning heavily against some of these growers when they see that they they clear forest and then there's also the government agencies who should act if something is not in their control and then they can then then they can then they can then they can then they can then they can then they can then they can pay for these things if they're doing it but it may not be사 something against it unless you are conducting a sort of industrial era start taking stocks and then you in the in the in the ideal is of no exception uh répondent so one of the things we are looking forward to is the poderiaadi c espacio that's also if qosh and of갛 and a formulable of began just التي insides because tropical forest regions are really fast and often very poorly accessible yeah you can have dirt tracks which are not accessible for a big part of the year because your car gets stuck in the mud yeah not to mention some yeah danger with people and that don't want you around there machetes and shooting arrows exactly yeah that that's all the reality and then it's nice if you can zoom in from space to the safety of space yeah so how do you do it what do you have hanging up there and what do you what are you looking for technology yes let's talk tech we're gonna go back to the force later on it's a tellies we mostly use free and open satellite data sources including the European Sentinel satellites Sentinel one is a radar satellite and the other one is a radar satellite and the other one is a radar satellite using microwaves and the Sentinel to is a more optical satellite with the visible and infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum as well as Lansat which is around for the past 30 40 years those are the key ingredients and those satellites produce data that are free for you to take for anyone to take exactly that right yeah okay yeah we we access that using by building a satellite and then we can use it to take data from the satellite building our services on the Google cloud platform and Amazon AWS and the nice thing about that is that they already have the full archives of all the images ever recorded by these by these satellites so that we can use our machine learning algorithms on those huge datasets is this google earth basically no Google Earth is the technology to visualize the profile right yeah yeah and that's what we're using that's the technology to visualize the And that is very useful to see. Stars. Yeah. This globe is not continuously updated. And that is what our service does. So we continuously update the information, like these trends, patterns, and anomalies, and the performance and risk, like I mentioned, every time a new satellite comes in. So we create time series for that. And yeah. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Well, back for a moment to these satellites. You mentioned radar, microwaves. Yeah. And you mentioned optical. And I'd like to know, what exactly do these wavelengths enable you to see? The different technologies have different pros and cons, of course. Why we use radar is because in the tropical forest landscapes, there's a lot of cloud cover. So it can be cloudy. And it's not just for days on end. And with the traditional satellites like Landsat, it's just impossible to get reliable, regular observations of change. So clearing of areas can take place completely below the clouds, and no one will ever notice until radar can. Yeah, which we see straight through. Okay. So with radar, you look through clouds, and you can see the difference between forest and clear cut. Yes, that is exactly why we use the radar, because we can detect changes really fast. Radar is not really the most ideal type of technology for seeing specific types of plants and crops in itself. So you just see, hey, something changed there. Yes, indeed. And some particular crops we can detect using the radar. For example, oil palm. Okay. But in general, that will be a trigger to start looking on some other wavelength and really see what's going on. Yeah. For some crops, we really need to know the information from the Sentinel-2 optical satellite. Yeah. Okay. So using optical, that's easy for me to imagine, because if I imagine looking down on some patch of land, well, it's probably easy to see if there's a forest, yes or no. Yeah. Right. And then you can see the forest. Yeah. And then you can see the forest. Yeah. And then you can see the forest. Right. And then you can see the forest. Right. One of my favorite hobbies on Earth is to go on Google Earth and just endlessly scroll and zoom in to wherever you are on the planet. You just look around. I just look around. You just sightsee. Yeah, I sightsee the planet. Beautiful. Yes. Yeah. And it always strikes me how vividly and easily you can see deforestation. Sometimes you can even see the... Then it's usually for wood, like when it's along a river and you go into this endless jungle. Suddenly it's completely clear cut. But you're not seeing a live image. It's not a live image. It's from a little bit from before. From a couple of years. Yeah. And in your case, like I'm looking at a couple of pictures here now where just huge parts of the jungle have just been wiped out. Where are you looking now? So Landsat actually has an image gallery where if you just look for deforestation, they have tons of examples of how just a complete jungle is just wiped away and suddenly there's like all these squares appear. You have before and after images there? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Show notes. I'll throw them in the show notes. Yeah. And I'm just thinking like how... If it happens today, when will that alert go off at your office? Well, if there's a direct observation on the same day, then it will be the same day. What? Really? So if somebody's starting to clear cut now, then... Yeah. But more generally speaking, the same place on Earth, the same place on Earth is now monitored every five, six days. So on a weekly basis, we can keep track of what's happening. And have you been able to prevent any further damage? Yes, that is what we try to achieve. Yeah. I can maybe explain a little bit about how specific users use it. We work with Bungie, which is one of the world's biggest traders. And in this case, we work on oil palm estates. They have a lot of suppliers which have plantations, third-party suppliers who provide them with the oil. And we check whether these suppliers are clearing forest or not. And then it can happen that, for example, primary, so the intact forest that there's still a patch within their concession boundaries, that they should not clear. Which they do. So we can detect that by the satellite. And what is happening then, this information is used as a conversation starter for the trader to call its third-party supplier and say, hey, what's happening there? We see this forest disappear and it should actually be conserved. And what are we going to do about it? And so it starts an engagement process, a conversation. And what can happen then is that the supplier is not able to tell the trader what's happening there. And what happens then is that the parties agree to set in a stop work order, meaning that they agree that no further forest should be cleared. And in a lot of cases, we also see then that this stop work order is respected and no further forest is cleared. It can also happen that this company just goes on and then it risks to be removed from the supply chain. So the contracts are, say, how do you call it? They're canceled. Nobody buys their wood anymore or their palm. Yeah, and this kind of visibility and traceability is really something that took off in the past years, also thanks to data from space. Yeah. And when it comes to cacao, is that the most sustainable of the three? Because palm oil, I haven't seen any sort of like sustainable palm oil certificates yet. Do they exist? Well, on the RSPO, like the RSS, RSPO label. RSPO label, okay. Or RSPO, keep an eye out for it. And cacao is in that regard more popular, is that maybe because it's in a luxury product that people, yeah. Everybody loves chocolate. Yeah, and everybody loves chocolate and everybody wants sustainable chocolate if it's possible. Yeah, there's the Oudts label, for example. We work together with them as well and Rainforest Alliance. I think it's hard to say which crop is most sustainable. And in the end, I also don't think that matters. Why? Because we look at the landscape scale. For example, we see that in Ghana, for example, where most of the cocoa is coming from, we see that intact forest areas are being cleared for small cocoa plantations. It's not big industrial cocoa plantations. Almost everything is small. Just small patches. But then we also saw that there are huge patches which are for annual crops. And we see that there are huge areas cleared for mining, gold mining. And there's a lot of timber and fire damage. So what we see now is that we need to know the drivers of deforestation. And then we also find that singling out one single commodity like cocoa, if you have those supply chains cleaned up, but the rest aren't, then the net impact is nothing. So it's very important that over the full range, we need to increase sustainability. Where is this the worst? The impact of commodities. Yeah. Well, there's always the countries where a lot of, most of producers is coming from. Old Palm is the... is mostly producing in Indonesia and Malaysia. We see most of the cocoa and produced in Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, South America, soy country, beef, likewise. Argentina, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, that is kind of interesting that a lot of it is quite focused on those areas. And this monitoring work, do you do this... at a scale and in places that you choose yourself or do you get told by customers where to look? Both. We see a trend at the moment. The monitoring used to be quite project level. So a certain district within Indonesia and what we see now with the monitoring systems maturing is that several big companies, the Unilevers and Cargills of this world now request us to focus on their global supply chains, which means tens of countries around the world, everywhere their oil palm or soy or cocoa is coming from. So that means that technically we have been working the past three years also to be able to monitor those huge areas. And that is a clear trend that we see. So, and in terms of monitoring, we monitor everything that is happening across these global supply chains. Yeah. Well, the trick is that trying not to miss out something that is high risk. What is also a critical component of our work is that we throw away a lot of these alerts because they are simply not high risk. We see a lot of areas, for example, in Indonesia and other parts of the world where already deforested areas where a regrowth is, where the regrowth is cleared or where actually plantations are built in the 80s, which are now cleared for replanting. So that is something different than in that forest. And that making data from space actionable, the software we created for that, that is, I think, a critical component on getting this space data used to focus only on the most. The old growth forest. Yes, to focus especially on the old growth forest or where areas on vulnerable peatlands, which are very important for a global climate where these are converted and to pinpoint exactly these high risk areas and forget about all the rest because with all these new satellites and technologies, we get more and more and more and more information, which doesn't necessarily mean that we make more clever decisions. So we need actually less information. You have to choose your focus, right? Exactly. So you said just now that you had to do some work to make sure you could monitor everything everywhere. So what did you need to do to get to that point? Especially cleaning up the input data. Cleaning up input data? Yes. Because as I mentioned in the beginning, in the tropics, there's a lot of cloud cover. On the one hand, we tackle that using radar, but we still need to pre-process the radar so that our time series are consistent. So radiometric, topographic corrections, a lot of stuff we need to do for the satellite images and for the optical satellite images. We need to remove all the clouds, all the haze to make sure that no artifacts remain that impact the data. So you could get false positives. That's what we don't want. So we need to clean it up in a proper way and make sure that we get very good input data to make sure that the accuracy of our land cover types and also the changes that that is very high. So on the one hand, the accessibility, availability and ease of access to these satellite images has increased a lot in the past years. But to use it really well and make sure that we don't have a problem. And if we have any fault in our alerts, we need to clean it up a lot. So that's a bit of the technical work on the satellite images and scaling it up to the whole world. That's also something it's really a big task to be able to do that on an automated basis. Yeah, that's right. Because I was just about to ask cleaning up the data. It sounds like you have people looking at pictures. This one, no. This one, yes. But actually you're describing an automated process. Yes. Yeah. I was hoping so that you don't have all these laborers sitting there cleaning up your images. And you also said something about just a couple of minutes ago about writing software. So you actually created the software that does this automatically. Yes. We have an engineering team which is working on that to automate and to scale these approaches. And they don't only work for a specific area in Ghana, but for the full cocoa supply chain in all the countries around the world where cocoa is grown. So the programming part is a big part of our work to make sure that the quality of the input is right, but also the quality of the output. And that we achieve the same results on the local level as on the global level. Yeah. And the name of your company is Satelligence. So you suggest something about intelligence. And satellites. Maybe artificial. Yeah. And satellites. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you, Thijs. But this software you describe, is that the intelligence stuff that you use or does that come afterwards? I think there is, yeah, there are several answers to this. The first one indeed. Takes your time. Yeah. And the second one is, you know, you're able to derive the right insights from a huge amount of data. So bringing it down to the essence, the essential things and pinpointing to the highest risks and affording a hundred thousands of alerts that no company or user will ever follow up. That's right. Yeah. That is part of it. I think there's a lot of talk about action more results. And really doing that, that's kind of a challenge that we really focus on. And also that's why we think it's important to have people on the ground and to integrate it and actually provide the proper context of this satellite information. It's an ingredient. So we need to combine it with all kinds of… That's how you see it. Yeah. In a way, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's the first thing that we need to do. And then the second thing is to make sure that we have the right data and also make sure that it ends up in a conversation. Last week in Washington, I was at a global forest watch summit with several institutes and private sector companies and leading figures in forest monitoring. And there a representative from Brazil said, well, we have our system, which is like the envy of the world. It's a very sophisticated deforestation system. And then around 1% of all the alerts is being followed up. Okay. Which means that also the organizational aspect is really, really critical and that we spend a lot of time working with all kinds of stakeholders on making sure we have that right connection. Otherwise, it's just a bunch of nice pictures of deforestation without context. Yeah. We had a vendor set here, Robbert Mica, a couple of months ago, I think. You know them as well? For sure. Yeah. They work together. Exciting company. Well, not at the moment, but I think we have the same spirit. Yeah. Well, you also use open satellite data as a resource. Yeah. Partly from the same satellites even. Yeah. Even from the same satellites. They do soil moisture, I believe. That's right. And they can basically see so many things all over the world happening with anything that happens. Yeah. Their emphasis is on the ground and what is growing there. Yeah. Our emphasis is on what is on the ground. The trees. Yeah. And the perennial crops and deforestation risks. So, in detail, we are kind of complimentary. But can you also, you can see when a forest is gone, you can see what it is being replaced by as well? Yeah. So, what sort of information can you read from the data? What are you trying to read? The main things are, like I explained, what kind of crop is growing where, and then we talk about performance. What can we say about yield, for example? What can we say about risk? And risk includes deforestation. It includes also flooding risk. It includes drought. Anything that can impact the good growth of a specific crop at a specific place. Okay. So, it's not just monitoring deforestation. No, it's broader. At this moment, we see a lot of requests for this specific information. And so, we will build this out on a global level. What sort of specific information do you mean? The specific information about where is soy, palm oil, or cocoa growing. And is it growing in areas which were recently deforested? Yeah. Basically, we have a lot of clients asking for that. We have a lot of clients asking for that specific information. Because it's quite a challenge to... We cover Southeast Asia at the moment, a part of West Africa, and a part of South America. And we want to create a global coverage of global supply chains for these three commodities. So, that will be the coming weeks, what we will try to finish. And after that, we will also add more risks like flooding. Why? Because, for example, smaller oil palm farmers are often not in the most optimal areas. They can be in flood riparian areas which are very frequently flooded. So, an investment there is bound to fail. And we can see that from historical satellite time series that these areas are so often flooded. So, they should better be avoided. And that kind of risk is also very important to make sure that they don't abandon these areas. And go to clear forest. Because, yeah, that's not what we want. Yeah, exactly. I still haven't satisfiedly gotten an answer to my question like how well you are received every now and then. I understand you're the intelligence company. So, sometimes you're just like, hey, we just provide the data. Yeah. Well, do you or your stakeholders get into fights with people? Somebody is deforesting this for their own gain. Yeah. You're stopping them. And you're trying to stop them. Well, yeah. But I think there's a lot of companies that understand that if they want to exist on the long run, if they produce more sustainably, that will save their company in the future. Also… You mentioned Unilever. I mean, it's a big player. So, they are on board with these things. Yeah. It's a core part of their strategy. The big Western companies like Unilever and banks. You told me before we went into the studio. Yeah. Are the parties that try to impose these sustainability standards upon the third world countries and companies, right? Well, not necessarily because a lot of these sustainability initiatives, almost all of them, they are voluntary. So, it's also coming from the private sector. And of course, especially the campaigning NGOs. They create awareness with consumers here. Those are really powerful source. But we see also in the financial sector quite a, what some call a green revolution. Like sustainability reporting becoming part of the annual reports to shareholders. If there's not an environmental paragraph in there, yeah, we see that less frequent. Yeah. So, I think it's a movement that's there and a positive one. Yeah. And have you been able to… What are your biggest successes, so to speak? Is there something that happened in the past few years where you're like, oh, that's really when we hit the alarm bell and things happened? Yeah. Maybe still on this point of whether we cause fights or something. Oh, yeah. Okay. We help… We provide independent information. So, it's… There can be very heated debates. And there are. Just neutral data. Yeah. Yeah. Neutral data. You said there was a forest. Now, there's no forest. Yeah. And now, there's a cocoa tree. Yeah. Yeah. And that really helps to bring some fact into more emotional debates. Yeah. And actually, some of our clients, they can show to Greenpeace when they come around. Look. We already saw it. We took action. We talked to the people here on the ground. Then we did these and these and these actions. Look here. We got it under control. And then actually Greenpeace being impressed saying, oh, wow, you detected some area that we didn't even see. Okay. Yeah. So, I think there's a big positive force from this space-derived insights. So, now your biggest success? The biggest success. I think that we have in the past been able to show that companies are indeed stopping the clearing of specific forest areas because local suppliers knew that we were monitoring them. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Because you sort of had a phone call out there saying, hey, we're watching you. Yes. Yeah. And then suddenly we don't do those phone calls ourselves. So, we enable our clients to do so. Yeah. That they immediately know who to call. And where was this? That was in Indonesia and Malaysia. What's very nice is that some of these companies also look beyond their own supply chain. So, if they see that in their neighboring areas, which is a conservation area, if something is changing there, it's not their jurisdiction, so to say, that they alert the local WWF. Conservation office to have a look there. Or that they alert the government to say, okay, look guys, in this park we see changes. What's the story behind it? And can you really go there? We also contribute, for example, to the patrol of orangutan habitat in Sumatra. The biggest part, Leuser National Park, is the biggest area where Sumatra orangutans are still around. And there we are alerts, which are really fast and rapidly updated. They are used by the local patrols to go with the government agencies to check upon areas that change and try to stop this deforestation. But on the other hand, to be honest, we also see areas where that didn't work, but then still they're in the public eye. And then NGOs can build a case around it. Or it's sometimes even a private case. And private sector companies themselves say, well, this is kind of unacceptable. Let's act. So there's something like norms growing that may end up working all by themselves. Yeah, and making your results tangible. Because there has been a lot of negativity around deforestation without clear information on where the good progress is. What we really like to contribute is cases where you can see that the deforestation is decreasing, where there's suppliers that are doing the right thing, traders and other stakeholders. And you're saying those signals do exist? Yes, we see, for example, for soy, there has been a moratorium, meaning that no new areas should be cleared for soy. And the data really shows that after that moratorium, the deforestation has decreased. Really? Yeah. So you're saying it's still there, but it has decreased? Well, in this case, what happened was that the soy deforestation moved from the Amazon, where this moratorium was, to more shrub-like forest types, what they call the Cerrado. And then there, there was a peak in deforestation. Oh, yeah. Until... Half of least resistance. Yeah. Until there was a lot of activity, even from royalty in the UK and other big, big names, and the companies and government to say, okay, the Cerrado in Brazil is something we should really focus on. We should protect it well. And we see that since 2015, that's what we just released last week in Utrecht at Rabobank office, where the roundtable on responsible soy brought together all key soy players. We could show that since 2015 for Cerrado, the deforestation is also decreasing, the deforestation due to soy. However, as I said earlier on in this discussion, overall, the deforestation in Brazil is rising. Yeah. So that's why we need to not focus on only one commodity, but look at the broad picture and at the landscape level and work with stakeholders. Otherwise you'll be penny wise and pound foolish. Yeah. So if I understand you correctly, so is it going the right way or the wrong way with deforestation right now? I think we see deforestation declining in several areas of the world, including in India. Indonesia, which is, according to some observers, also the result of tougher government enforcement and better policies. We see that in specific parts of the world. But in the meantime, a lower deforestation rate is still deforestation. Yeah, exactly. The whole point is we are for the first time now looking at these global supply chains. So that has not been done before. So I think in a year I will be able to answer your question in much more detail. Okay. When we have covered those areas. We invite you back then. Yeah. Sorry, you go. This ties into this, but also the question a little bit earlier. So you feed it, you're going to feed all data from the entire world into your system instead of just very specific images right now. Or is it because you're not feeding pictures of Amsterdam or New York. I was about to ask. Oh, really? Okay. Deforestation in the Netherlands because we're talking third world and developing countries all the time. Yeah. How about the Netherlands? Right. Also still happens. That's right. We don't have old growth. Deforestation in the Netherlands is on the rise. So are you monitoring our own country? Yeah, that's an interesting question. Since March, we saw this huge debates in Dutch society about deforestation. About deforestation. And about climate change. Yes. And biomass for co-firing energy plantations. Alternative fuels for... That's how Holland tries to get its sustainability goals by burning forests. That's right. Yeah. So tell me. Yeah. And it is also so obvious. I'm a forester myself. So I know that forests take time. And I think in these... To grow, you know. Yeah. In this very fast information society. It's easy to see that the forest has been cleared. But it takes many years before the forest will grow back. I think in the Netherlands, the big issue is that a lot of the forest is cleared for heather. For what? The purple plant. The heath. Oh, wow. Heather. Heather heath. Yeah. It's a very specific type of landscape that you don't find in that many places in the world. Actually, I did not know because as a little kid, I would always go to the heath. And then be there. And then two weeks ago, I read like, oh my God, it's super special. Actually. Clear cut and grazing by sheep and everything. Yeah, right. You cut the forest away. And then you take the soil off. And what then remains will develop into a heath. So it is a cultural landscape. It's an awful land management. Yeah. It is a cultural landscape. In the Netherlands, people call it nature. Yeah. That's what we destroyed. So what about it as a result? People don't know, right? Because people from all over the world can listen to this podcast. And the Netherlands is just every square centimeter is a man-made construction that we now call nature sometimes because it looks green. It's super weird. Yeah. Sorry. Continue. And the point is that I think Wageningen's scientists last year showed that the deforestation rate in the Netherlands is as high as the deforestation rate in the Amazon. There you go. Yeah, exactly. And why is that? Because there's temporal forest in the Netherlands, but specifically urbanization and, as I mentioned, the conversion of these forests to a heather. And what is weird is that in the Netherlands, the agencies working on forests still use aerial photography, which is outdated for years. So what's wrong about it? I mean, if you take a photograph, you can see what's going on, right? In Brazil, they have systems which are updated weekly. And we are in the Netherlands, so we are working with aerial photography, which is three, four years old. And forest survey data, which is even older. That's not going to work. It is weird. So you're monitoring Indonesia, but you can't even monitor the country you're based in. We can. So I think we should monitor our own backyard. So this is something that we want to explore further in the coming weeks. It's kind of strange. I spoke to some key figures in forestry in the Netherlands. And yeah, why don't we use these techniques in the Netherlands? Okay, so you actually have plans to start monitoring forest cover in the Netherlands. Yeah, it would be nice. We already did some tests to see. I was driving along the A1 and you could see that. One of our highways. Yeah, you could see where a whole strip in the center was cleared. Yeah. It was all gone. I used to drive there for over 20 years. Why did they do that? Don't need satellites for that. No. Yeah. But it's true. I know what the part you're talking about. And I was also kind of amazed. Those kind of things are fueling the distrust in Dutch society about forest and that all the forest is disappearing. And that's why I mentioned that. Okay, in forestry, you clear areas also to make the Dutch forest more healthy. And now let's see whether a healthy forest comes back. It takes a few years. Let's monitor that. I think that's what we need to do. Yeah, okay. And so you can do that outside in other countries as well. I mean, Herbert, you asked, is there a sustainable way to grow oil palm or any of these other crops? Is there a way? Because the most sort of well-known pictures of these plantations are just these endless rows of the same tree until the horizon. Do you have an alternative model for this? Or is it just like, just don't cut down forest and then that's where your job ends? Well, I think some forest has to be cut. But let's save the best forest and especially expand in areas that don't have forest at all. So, you know, you can use degraded lands with shrubs, with whatever. Use those for forestry. That would be the best. Then you increase forest cover. Yeah. But I think that there is, two weeks ago in Utrecht, there was the sustainable palm oil dialogue with many key players from the industry. And there also one of the takeaways was that there's so much. There's examples of very good management and good progress, but they don't reach the consumers that well. And we hope that space technology can help also show the good examples. For example, we were working with companies and growers in East Kalimantan who preserve a lot of the riparian areas even more than they have to. And there you will find orangutan and other types of monkeys and other high biodiversity areas. So there are good examples showing that palm and forest can coexist. And I think also that these examples should be better known also to consumers. That it is possible to utilize the landscape in the right way and balance it also with protecting forest areas. Sure. Where will this go? Because if you build algorithms and software. Yeah. You can feed it all types of information. Do you want to expand? Do you keep on staying with these forests? Like where does this go? Forest intelligence you mean? Yeah. Forest intelligence. Yes. We will expand to several more commodities. I mentioned rubber, coffee, beef obviously. One of the biggest impact on forest. Yeah. That's something that we'll do indeed. And also to monitor. So we'll do a lot of monitoring for annual crops like rice, corn, sugar cane. Which are not necessarily related to deforestation. But our philosophy is that if we want to reduce the pressure on forest. We also have to make sure and help to increase the production in already existing agricultural areas. So to intensify. And to raise the yields. Because a lot of smallholder farmers who have very low yields. And who can make up for a yield gap. So you don't have to use more land in order to get some. Exactly. Yeah. That's right. So the land that's already under cultivation. That is used more efficiently. So we are already working on these kind of techniques. For example in detecting diseases in corn. In maize fields. In corn fields. In corn fields. And so on. So it's like Vander said. Who said they could predict a hunger epidemic coming up. Because of failed crops. A month before it happens. Which is insane. Yeah. So eventually. If I hear correctly. Eventually if more and more companies like yours pop up. And all the satellite data is available. You can monitor the entire earth. And just see what grows where. How much of it grows. How well it does. And you suddenly have like global data. On all crops. Like give it a couple of decades. Our main interest for now is like I said. Soy or palm and cocoa. If we achieve that. That would already be world's first. Having weekly information. Which can be used for this engagement. And conversation. And showing progress towards zero deforestation. If we can pull it off already this year. That would be really great. And is that something that you can just start doing. And something that just takes time. Or do you also need investment money. For instance. For now we are very lucky. That we have a very large network. Of clients and partners. So a lot of our development is coming from. From the market. So to say. So self financed. Yes. Self financed. Also we are fortunate to have some support. From the Netherlands government. The Netherlands space office. In some programs for example. Working with Rainforest Alliance. With Mars and Touton. Touton being one of the key traders. In cocoa in Ghana. That helps in demonstrating. How these new technologies. Because yes still. These are new technologies. And it is not really common place. On using them for our clients. So there still has to. Yeah we still have to grow there. In terms of organization. And embedding this space. Derived insights into their workflows. And that is also where I see. A lot of new work. Continued work to be done. Any new satellites that you need? Well I think that it would be nice. To have more. Even more radar data. At a slightly higher resolution. But on the other hand. I think that there is already. So much data out there. And the trick is not. In getting even more data. It is in wiser use. Of what we already have. Just coming here. To you guys. To talk about this. I read that the Norwegian government. I read it on Reuters. That the Norwegian government said. Yeah for the monitoring of Brazil. With this new administration there. The deforestation is rising sharply. We need more satellites to monitor. To monitor the country. And take action. No. There is already a lot of monitoring. Or satellite data. That we should convert better. And have the better embedding. In workflows. To make it use. Like I said. If 1% is used. Why have more satellites? To have more. To take more time and effort. To filter out the bad stuff. Yeah. That is what I think. We are not yet done. With all these great satellites. That are already here. Yeah exactly. And so the alarm bells. Do they go off often? Yeah I think. If you look at several companies. That have their supply base. In Indonesia. They have about 230. I think key alerts. That they should focus on. That is too many. That is too many alerts. But still. With traditional systems. It could be 100,000. And that is something that. 100,000 with hundreds of thousands. Of false positives. That is the point. Yeah exactly. So we try to focus on those areas. And give people a call. Go into the field. Discuss it in boardrooms. With shareholders. And never a government. That then just. I don't know. Sends the police there. And say like hey what are you doing? There are cases like that. Yes in Peru it has happened. And there are several other cases. Where indeed the government. Was presented this information. And the land owners bring it. For example. In some areas in South America. The local communities. Have the rights. The land titles. Land titling is important there. And if they have huge areas. Where there is some illegal gold mining. Going on by outsiders. And they have these images. To show to the police. Look these outsiders are working here. Come help us. And then there are several cases. Even court cases. That resulted from this. From your data. That must be good. To be proud of. Very good. Thank you Niels for this conversation. And so we need to invite you. Back a year from now. To see how it goes. When you monitor the whole world. Exactly. Herbert and our listeners. Thank you. And have a nice summer. Yes. Yes. And see you around. I hope it's nice where you are. Okay. Thanks mate. Bye bye.