ENV · 002 / OF 012
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Environmental & Climate Investigation
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Illegal deforestation detection is not a remote-sensing exercise: it is an attribution exercise. Satellite imagery and loss-alert platforms establish that clearing occurred; the investigative work begins when you link a specific parcel to a named landowner, trace the commodity that parcel produced into a supply chain, and connect that chain to processors, retailers, or financiers who had, or should have had, knowledge of the violation. The method integrates near-real-time forest loss data, national land registries, enforcement fine databases, and supply chain transparency platforms to produce a documented chain from forest floor to balance sheet.
Apply this method when a loss alert, enforcement action, or commodity report implicates a specific parcel or municipality, and when the investigative purpose is to verify illegality rather than simply observe change. A loss alert is a signal, not a finding. A cross-referenced permit boundary, a matched land-registry record, a corroborated enforcement fine, and a traced supply chain: each indicator, individually, is ambiguous. The pattern, corroborated across sources, is not.
ENV-002 sets out the methodology for identifying, geolocating, and attributing illegal forest clearance through satellite data, land-registry research, and supply chain tracing to evidentiary standard.
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Forensic count
Eight workflow steps, six tooling sources, five false-positive checks, six chain-of-custody requirements. |
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Required Tools
Six platforms covering satellite loss alerts, supply chain tracing, and enforcement records.
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OPSEC
Pre-publication contact risks, satellite tasking exposure, and database access hygiene.
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Workflow
Eight-step sequence from loss-alert triage to exhibit compilation and corporate comment.
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False Positives
Legal clearance, cloud cover, municipality-level aggregation, overturned fines, plantation cycles.
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Chain of Custody
Scene ID logging, SHA-256 hashing, GeoTIFF archiving, and tasking receipt retention.
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Key Queries
Five operator references across GFW, IBAMA, Trase, WDPA, and Google Earth Engine.
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Download the card.
A PDF version of ENV-002 is available below for Signal subscribers.
The rest of this card is for Signal subscribers.
What remains: the step sequence, the tool list, the false-positive checks and the chain-of-custody note. Signal is €90 a year, or €9 a month. Students, €49 a year.
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