GFOI partner the Norwegian Ministry of Climate and Environment will purchase and freely distribute high resolution satellite imagery of all tropical forests. A broad set of stakeholders will be given free access to use the data to better analyze forests and land use change, including governments, scientists and NGOs.

The international public tender, launched by the Norwegian International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI), is out now on the European procurement web portal TED. Interested commercial data providers can access all the details, including technical requirements at this link: https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:299285-2019:HTML:EN:HTML&tabId=1&tabLang=en. 

The procurement, which will cost to Norway approximately USD 50 million, will be assigned following a negotiation process which NICFI aims to complete by the end of 2019.

This purchase is part of Norway’s multi-billion dollar contribution to detecting deforestation in the tropics and addressing global climate change. “The purpose is to give us all a better insight into what’s happening in the forests and improve our ability to save them”, Climate and Environment Minister Ola Elvestuen said to Reuters (Reuters: Better satellite images to help save rainforests, Norway says).