Deforestation Free
Abstract
According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, some 420 million hectares of forests worldwide have been lost to deforestation over the past 30 years, severely compromising their important functions (e.g., sequestering carbon to slow climate change, conserving biodiversity, providing wood as a renewable resource). It is estimated that agricultural expansion is responsible for nearly 90% of global deforestation. A large part of tropical forests converted into agricultural land is used for the production of globally traded commodities (esp. palm oil, soy, cocoa, coffee and natural rubber). Consumption of these goods in the EU is responsible for about 10% of global deforestation. The European Commission has recognized these facts and the responsibility they entail, and has therefore proposed a regulation to put an end to deforestation. This requires objective traceability from the production of the raw material to the customer. Therefore, traceability is the first technology component used in DeFREE: a product tag based on a QR code makes it possible to trace the product back to its origin. In a second step, the remote sensing component assesses whether deforestation has occurred in the production area and its surroundings since 2020. In cases of doubt, more detailed in-situ data are required. Such ground data are not always easy to obtain - especially in tropical and subtropical countries. Therefore, crowdsourcing is used as a third component in DeFREE: crowdsourcing. In our project, crowdsourcing data is a valuable data source to train the system and ensure reliable results.
Publikationen
Project staff
Christian Garaus
Ass.Prof. Mag. Dr. Christian Garaus
christian.garaus@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-73513
BOKU Project Leader
01.10.2023 - 30.09.2025
Caroline Kunesch
Caroline Kunesch B.Sc. MSc.
caroline.kunesch@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-73525
Project Staff
01.10.2023 - 30.09.2025