During the first three days of 2021, Patrick Ribeiro, drone expert at OpenForests (they developed the explorer.land mapping tool you are using right now), visited Vinha Velha with the goal to map the whole area using a DJI Mavic Pro quadcopter. After a couple of days with unstable weather conditions with irregular rains and strong wind gusts, he finally managed to map the whole area during the third day, under a nice Portuguese sunny winter day.

The new high resolution aerial imagery gives us a great detailed overview of the current status of the landscape of Vinha Velha and will help us to track changes and progress in the future as soon as new maps are generated. A great tool to keep track on what we do!
As for communication to the world: it gives you a unique insight in the area and our actions. You can now almost literally see it up close! The map provides amazing presentation material through which we can give you a virtual tour experience through the land where we explain, report and show you all the interesting sights and developments.

Another great benefit of such detailed mapping is that it supports us in the decision making for interventions in the field. We can read the landscape and see where the ecosystem needs us most and plan interventions accordingly. We can analyze eroded areas, water flow off, tree growth, read the inclinations of the landscape and much more.

We are very grateful for our collaboration with OpenForests and are very much looking forward to next steps to restore nature together!