Airbus to marshal its satellites against deforestation
One of the world’s largest aerospace companies is enlisting its satellites in the fight to save forests. That’s the aim of Starling, a new service developed by Airbus Defence and Space, nonprofit The Forest Trust and remote-sensing specialist SarVision. Food giants Nestlé and Ferrero, two of the top users of palm oil — a ubiquitious commodity whose production has fueled economic growth but also deforestation in countries like Indonesia — hope Starling will help them clean up their vast supply networks. The two multinationals announced on Monday they would pilot the service before it hits the market in early 2017. Despite a raft of pledges by major refiners and users of palm oil to purge their supply chains of forest and peatland destruction, none has yet managed to even identify the origins of everything it buys — an early prerequisite for any “mission accomplished” declaration by corporations who say they intend to “transform the industry.”
