Google Deepmind creates a global map of forests with satellite data and AI

Google DeepMind and the World Resources Institute developed ForTy, an AI map that assigns the world's 2020 land area to six classes at 10-meter resolution, including primary forest, planted forest, plantations, and tree crops such as oil palm, rubber, and cocoa. The map is intended mainly to give companies a 2020 reference point for the EU Deforestation-free Products Regulation (EUDR), and experts found it correct in 90.2 percent of 8,190 reviewed sites, though it identified only about half of tree crops and planted forests and 60 percent of plantations. The map, classification layer, and test data are freely available under a CC BY 4.0 license, including in Google Earth Engine.