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| Elephants wade through water that floods the Okavango Delta annually after flowing down from the Angolan Highlands. Shot on assignment for a National Geographic magazine story about the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project |
Building upon 12 years of collaboration, Google and the National Geographic Society have announced the launch of a major new partnership that will address the myriad threats impacting the Earth at this critical juncture in ways only the two organizations can.
Over the next two years and beyond, Google and the National Geographic Society will work together to leverage the power of Google's technology and National Geographic's world-class science and storytelling, as well as National Geographic Labs' innovations, to build a first-of-its-kind, dynamic, four-dimensional digital representation of the vital signs of Earth's natural ecosystems.
This living rendition of the globe will allow users to monitor the world's species and ecosystems over time, understand threats to the natural world and realize solutions to help achieve a planet in balance.
The two organizations will source and generate new data on ecosystems, biodiversity, urban growth, migrations and extreme environments to inform insights and inspire action by educating consumers and decision-makers about the critical importance of protecting at least 30 percent of the planet by 2030.
National Geographic Society's Executive Vice President and Chief Scientist Dr. Jonathan Baillie and Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Dr. Ya-Ping Zhang highlighted the need to achieve this critical biodiversity target in a recent editorial in the journal Science.
"There is finite space and energy on the planet, and we must decide how much of it we're willing to share," Baillie and Zhang wrote.
Wildlife populations have decreased over 50 percent since the 1970s, while humans' impact on the landscape is becoming more and more visible in satellite imagery.
For decades, decisions about protecting critical ecosystems have been made using very limited data. In 2020, the world's governments will meet in Beijing, China, to set targets that aim to protect current levels of biodiversity and the ecosystems that support food and water security as well as the health of billions of people.
The Google-National Geographic Society partnership will create tools to help this decision-making.
Two initial components of the partnership are launching at the annual Geo for Good Summit in Sunnyvale, Calif. As part of the National Geographic Society's efforts to protect our planet's last wild places, the Society and Google are releasing a new dataset called The Human Impact Map on Google Earth that shows the planet's remaining, relatively untouched landscapes.
Additionally, to showcase one of these iconic landscapes and its importance at a local and regional scale, the announcement also includes the launch of a new Voyager story in Google Earth, "Protecting the Okavango River Basin," focused on southern Africa's Okavango River Basin.
This Voyager story uses the newly visualized Human Impact data and provides on-the-ground data and storytelling from National Geographic's Okavango Wilderness Project expeditions to show how we can better protect the natural resources and wildlife of regions like the Okavango watershed.
"National Geographic is committed to an ambitious conservation vision and is excited to be partnering with Google to articulate why that vision is essential and to help measure our progress in achieving it," said Baillie. "By combining the power of Google's innovative technology with National Geographic's groundbreaking research, storytelling and the National Geographic Labs team, we're dramatically increasing society's understanding of Earth's natural systems and species and providing new insights on how to protect them."
"This is a time of great threat to our natural ecosystems, but there is still time for us to correct our course," said Rebecca Moore, Director, Google Earth. "Data gives nature a voice, and by harnessing the power of technologies such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI) and global-scale geospatial analytics, we can gain new insights and perspectives on how life is adapting to our changing planet. We can use those insights to inform people and make better decisions for ourselves and the planet. There are hopeful outcomes when people have access to this information and can use it to protect life on earth."
Looking ahead to 2019 and 2020, Google and National Geographic will collaborate on key Google Earth data layers and stories focused on biodiversity, animal migrations and the impacts of climate change.
They plan to develop engaging user and decision-maker experiences to better demonstrate the need to protect the world's ecosystems.
Leveraging the National Geographic Society's expertise in conservation science with Google's excellence in big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence, the organizations will identify and aim to solve the grand challenges that decision-makers are trying to address and help them make better informed decisions to protect the planet.
About the National Geographic Society:
The National Geographic Society is a leading nonprofit that invests in bold people and transformative ideas in the fields of exploration, scientific research, storytelling and education.
The Society aspires to create a community of change, advancing key insights about the planet and probing some of the most pressing scientific questions of our time, all while ensuring that the next generation is armed with geographic knowledge and global understanding. Its goal is measurable impact: furthering exploration and educating people around the world to inspire solutions for the greater good.
About Google:
Google's mission is to "Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."
Google Earth, Earth Outreach and Earth Engine are part of a broader team dedicated to leveraging and developing Google's infrastructure to address global environmental, health and humanitarian issues.
Projects are often in partnership with area experts, focus on data driven approaches and visualizations at scale to bring greater transparency and awareness, create new tools to understand system dynamics and better inform decision making.
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