Our Work

Blue Raster helps you tell your story through interactive
mapping technology. Make your message clear, exciting,
and user-friendly for both mobile and web platforms.

Forest

The LEARN Tool: Everything You Need to Know About its Exciting 2025 Updates

Posted on by Eric Ashcroft

Launched in 2021, the Land Emissions and Removals Navigator (LEARN) Tool was designed to help communities easily measure greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions resulting from land use changes. The tool enables users to intuitively analyze how forests and trees impact GHG emissions using land use and land cover data. In its latest update, Blue Raster collaborated with the Woodwell Climate Research Center, ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, and the World Resources Institute to expand its features, giving local governments and landowners even more tools to understand and manage the carbon stored in their forests and trees.

Blue Raster supported the initial development of the LEARN Tool to address a significant gap in existing carbon accounting methods. Traditionally, previously analyses have focused on measuring their emissions from energy and transportation sectors, while the emissions and removals from land-use change and forestry have been overlooked. However, these land-based emissions and removals are responsible for a significant proportion of the carbon footprint, particularly in rural areas.

What’s New in the LEARN Tool?

LEARN Tool

The latest iteration of the the LEARN Tool was built with the ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript and utilizes geoprocessing and image services hosted in an ArcGIS Enterprise environment.

The updated analysis in the LEARN Tool now includes the latest maps of Mature and Old Growth Forests, along with their protected status, offering a more comprehensive view of forest ecosystems. In addition to reporting net GHG emissions, the tool breaks down the total forest area by age and protection level, while calculating the carbon stored within each category. This deeper insight allows communities to understand the critical role forests play in carbon sequestration and climate mitigation.

With this information, users can easily identify high-value areas for preservation, develop strategies to protect mature and old growth forests, and take actionable steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By highlighting the connection between forest preservation and climate impact, the LEARN Tool empowers communities to make informed decisions that align with their environmental goals.

Blue Raster also enhanced the LEARN Tool’s greenhouse gas analysis module with the latest National Land Cover Database (NLCD) data and added the ability for users to customize carbon factors with their own data. The default carbon factors used by the tool are derived from the Forest Inventory and Analysis database, providing a reliable foundation for calculating greenhouse gas emissions. Now, users can upload local carbon data tailored to their specific community, enabling more accurate and precise analysis.

Finally, the tool’s user interface has been revamped, making it even easier to run analyses and interpret results. These updates provide users with greater flexibility, improved accuracy, and a more streamlined experience as they work to understand and address the role of forests in greenhouse gas emissions.

Image of Analysis Panel showing tables of Area and Carbon Stocks categorized by forest age and protections status

Our Commitment to Conservation and Addressing Climate Challenges

Blue Raster is deeply committed to supporting conservation efforts and empowering communities with the tools they need to address climate challenges. This commitment drives our continuous development of the Land Emissions and Removals Navigator (LEARN) Tool, ensuring it remains at the forefront of innovation in measuring and managing greenhouse gas emissions from land use changes.

By collaborating with leading organizations and integrating the latest data and technologies, we strive to make the LEARN Tool a comprehensive and accessible resource for local governments, landowners, and conservationists. Our dedication to refining and expanding the tool reflects our belief in the power of actionable insights to promote sustainable land management and protect valuable ecosystems for future generations.

At Blue Raster, we are proud to be part of the global effort to create a healthier, more resilient planet.

Learn more about our work here and contact us today to see how we can support your mission and objectives.

Contact Form

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Accountability Framework Initiative and Compliance with GFW Pro

Posted on by Katya Little

The Global Forest Watch (GFW) Pro application allows users to track and receive alerts of deforestation within their supply chains in real time, offering an accessible and comprehensive way for organizations to view their own progress in this key area of natural resource conservation. Blue Raster is proud to announce two updates to GFW Pro that allow for more efficient analysis of supply chains in light of new international regulations: new analyses specific to Argentina, and implementation of an E.U. deforestation regulation module tracking deforestation of natural lands since 2020.

A GFW Pro window displaying the characteristics of a particular historic site.

 

Accountability Framework Initiative and the EUDR 

The Accountability Framework, introduced in 2019 by an international collaboration of private producers and NGOs that form the Accountability Framework Initiative (AFi), provides companies a roadmap to more sustainable production methods by outlining best practices and measures of impact. By applying the Accountability Framework, producers can better ensure that their supply chains adhere to international standards of sustainability and report to stakeholders and consumers the steps they are taking to secure a better future for people and the planet. A particular standard of sustainability for producers will soon be implemented in the EU–the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which obligates organizations that trade within the EU to ensure that their products are: 

  • Deforestation-free, meaning they come from a plot of land that was not deforested after 31 December 2020 
  • Produced in line with the relevant legislation in the country of production 
  • Covered by a due diligence statement.

GFW Pro now allows organizations to explore their production within the framework of EUDR and uses a new layer showing natural lands in 2020 as a baseline for deforestation analyses, confirming that products regulated by the EU are free from deforestation and degradation.

A table on GFW Pro showing forest loss since 2020 for a particular dataset.

Argentina OTBN Data

Additionally, GFW Pro now includes province-by-province data on Argentina’s Territorial Planning of Native Forests (OTBN). The 2007 regulation categorizes Argentina’s forests into three levels of conservation value and corresponding regulation, ranging from Category I (forest lands of high conservation value that cannot be transformed) to Category III (forest lands of low conservation value that can be transformed within existing regulation). The new data lets organizations monitor the overlap of the OTBN category of lands utilized in production and deforestation of those lands, enabling producers to more efficiently track whether or not tree cover loss remains within limits set by the OTBN regulation.

Blue Raster is a proud partner of the World Resources Institute and GFW Pro. Learn more about our work here.

Advancing Sustainable Development in West Africa: A Geospatial Toolkit for Monitoring SDG Goals

Posted on by Chigo Ibeh

In 2015, United Nations Member States adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a shared blueprint for global peace and prosperity now and into the future. Within the core of this agenda are 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) which call all countries to action in a global partnership.

Goal 15 of the Sustainable Development Goals outlines a plan to protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and biodiversity loss

As part of its initiatives in West Africa, the MIT Media Lab partnered with the Biospheric Sciences Lab at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Blue Raster to develop a desktop-based geospatial toolkit for calculating and reporting key indicators within Goal 15 of the SDGs. These key indicators are:

  • Forest area as a proportion of total land area
  • Proportion of important sites for terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity that are covered by protected areas, by ecosystem type.
  • Coverage by protected areas of important sites for mountain biodiversity.

Blue Raster developed these tools in a custom toolbox using ArcGIS Pro and the ArcGIS Python site package, ArcPy to calculate the key indicators for countries in the West African region namely: Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Togo, Benin, Guinea, and Botswana. The tool leverages remotely sensed imagery and standardized datasets to inform and provide decision making support to West African stakeholders as well as stakeholders within the academic community supporting the UN’s Sustainable Development agenda.

Blue Raster is long time partner of the MIT Media Lab and had previously partnered with the MIT Media Lab and Green Keeper Africa to develop the Lake Nokoué Environmental Observatory application, an online mapping that provides the public with current and historic information about water quality and invasive species in Lake Nokoué. The online observatory and decision support tool utilizes satellite, aerial and ground data to map water quality readings, as well as the location of water hyacinth and a fish farming practice known as “acadja” over time.

Improving Deforestation Risk Management in Commodity Supply Chain

Posted on by Chigo Ibeh

Blue Raster developed Global Forest Watch Pro, a decision support tool that empowers companies to monitor their supply chains for responsible environmental practices. Companies can upload all of their of sourcing areas, farms, and supply sheds for analysis and view interactive maps and diagnostics displaying occurrences of deforestation, alerts for forest fires, land cover types. The site now serves nearly 1,000 users across approximately 350 organizational accounts. Current users are spread across every continent in the world.

GFW Pro map

To support the growing use, Blue Raster recently implemented several updates. The analysis back-end is modernized to make it more scalable and provides more power for processing data faster. The team also moved to a Spark engine and incorporated an AWS Step workflow to allow for higher data processing capacity and improved functionality for the tool.

Promoting Sustainable Forestry Practices with High Resolution Imagery

Posted on by Chigo Ibeh

Blue Raster is proud to have developed and supported an audit area tool for the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). This solution pulls data so that auditors can examine historic and current tree cover before going on site to complete their inspections. Now it’s available with high resolution imagery!

Blue Raster recently integrated high resolution satellite imagery from Planet and Sentinel into the audit area tool. This new imagery, made available by Norway’s International Climate & Forests Initiative, provides 3-meter resolution as compared to the pre-existing 10-meter resolution type used in the tool. This new level of detail in images provides an even clearer picture of forestry practices and realities.

FSC Sustainable Forestry Practices imagery

In addition to the new imagery, the team also updated and reorganized the layer panel to make the maps more user friendly. New tools that measure elevation changes were also added.

 

Learn more about this project here.

Page 1 of 6