July 18th 2023 - Plant-for-the-Planet is taking creative approaches to combating the climate crisis. With its new FireAlert app, the organization is making NASA satellite data available easily and free of charge so that authorities and restoration organizations around the world can detect and fight forest fires more quickly.
"The climate crisis is fueling wildfires, and with them our planet’s natural air conditioning systems are burning. In many places, early warning systems don't even exist yet. With our FireAlert app, we give the public a simple and free tool to act quickly in case of wildfires. The app thus contributes to climate protection and supports firefighters in their often life-threatening mission," says Felix Finkbeiner, founder of Plant-for-the-Planet. He co-developed the app primarily to help fight forest fires on project sites in Mexico, Ghana and Spain, where Plant-for-the-Planet is restoring degraded forest ecosystems.
The app uses satellite data from the U.S. space agency NASA to provide user-friendly, real-time information about global heat anomalies. Users can specify the area they want to monitor in this way and receive alerts on their smartphone, via SMS or WhatsApp – an improvement over the existing email alerts from NASA. "Using NASA's invaluable data, we've developed an open-source application that is not only user-friendly, but also a powerful tool for environmental protection. From download to first fire warning, users can view possible fires in just 30 seconds" says Sagar Aryal, Council Member at Plant-for-the-Planet Foundation, who supervises the development of the app.
It enables restoration and forest conservation organizations to respond quickly and effectively to fires in or near to their projects sites, especially in regions without a professional early warning system. "The climate crisis is increasing the frequency and intensity of bushfires in Ghana's savanna ecosystem - where we are already dealing with long-lasting droughts. Until now, we had no early warning system for fire detection in our project area. Thanks to the FireAlert app, we can now fight bushfires faster. This way, we preserve the valuable biodiversity and ecosystem of the savannah," says Mohammed Rabiu Dannakabu, President of Plant-for-the-Planet Ghana.
Plant-for-the-Planet's FireAlert app contributes to the UN Decade for Ecosystem Restoration, a global initiative led by the UN Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The UN Decade, which runs from 2021 to 2030, aims to combat the loss and degradation of ecosystems worldwide by mobilizing political support, scientific research and financial resources.
With the FireAlert app, Plant-for-the-Planet now offers another piece in the establishment of a complete toolkit that organizations can use to restore forest ecosystems. Plant-for-the-Planet already provides:
The Plant-for-the-Planet Platform ensures transparency and brings donors and restoration and forest protection organizations together.
The Advice Team offers free advice on selecting restoration strategies and tree species.
The soon-to-be-released SeedManager app provides a seed database for biodiversity conservation.
Background
Wildfires are devastating in two senses: On the one hand, the cooling function of forests is lost, and on the other, additional CO₂ is released. For restoration organizations, wildfires represent a hard setback. Because the fight against the climate crisis is also a race against time. The United Nations predicts that the risk of forest fires will increase significantly due to the climate crisis. Extreme fires, such as those that recently occurred in Canada, California or southern Europe, would occur about a third more frequently by 2050, and as much as 50 percent more frequently by the end of the century. More investment in prevention and early detection is needed, according to a paper published in 2022 by the UN Environment Agency.
Plant-for-the-Planet Foundation | Am Bahnhof 1 | 82449 Uffing a. Staffelsee | Deutschland www.plant-for-the-planet.org | phone: +49 (0)8808 9345 | fax: +49 (0)8808 9346 Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter
Authorized representatives: Michael Durach, Dr. Josep Santacreu, Bernhard Hannemann
