Mozambique has agreed to protect a tract of highland forest discovered by scientists using Google Earth, reports The Guardian.
The government of the Southern African country said it would bar logging of Mount Mabu forest after a series of scientific expeditions turned up a trove of undescribed species, including new species of butterflies, a viper, and a colorful chameleon as well as rare birds and plants.
“The three messages we conveyed were that there is rich biodiversity in Mozambique, that butterflies and botany can be as important as mammals, and that conservation policy should take into consideration areas such as these mountains or the coastal forests, that do not easily fit into the usual category of national park,” Jonathan Timberlake of Kew Gardens told the The Guardian. Conservationists from Kew first identified the site using Google Earth and led the inventories of Mount Mabu.
 Base Camp on Mount Mabu. Photo by Julian Bayliss
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The site was first sighted by scientists when Kew’s Julian Bayliss spotted the 7,000-hectare tract of forest on Mount Mabu using Google Earth in 2005. The forest has previously only been known to local villagers. Subsequent expeditions in October and November 2008 turned up a wealth of wildlife including pygmy chamelons, Swynnerton’s robin, butterflies (including three new species), blue duiker antelope, samango monkeys, elephant shrews, a previously undiscovered species of snake (in the Gaboon viper family) and many plants, including a rare orchid. In all the team collected more than 500 plant specimens.
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(04/13/2009) In October 2008 scientists with the Royal Botanical Garden at Kew discovered a host of previously unknown species in a remote highland forest in Mozambique. The find was no accident: three years earlier, conservationist Julian Bayliss identified the site—Mount Mabu—using Google Earth, a tool that’s rapidly becoming a critical part of conservation efforts around the world. As the discovery in Mozambique suggests, remote sensing is being used for a bewildering array of applications, from monitoring sea ice to detecting deforestation to tracking wildlife. The number of uses grows as the technology matures and becomes more widely available. Google Earth may represent a critical point, bringing the power of remote sensing to the masses and allowing anyone with an Internet connection to attach data to a geographic representation of Earth.
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(12/22/2008) Scientists have used Google Earth to find a previously unknown trove of biological diversity in Mozambique, reports the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew. Scouring satellite images via Google Earth for potential conservation sites at elevations of 1600 meters or more, Julian Bayliss a locally-based conservationist, in 2005 spotted a 7,000-hectare tract of forest on Mount Mabu. The scientifically unexplored forest had previously only been known to villagers. Subsequent expeditions in October and November this year turned up hundreds of species of plants and animals, including some that are new to science.
