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Entries by Amy Mathews

Twenty years of SkyTruth success

December 21, 2021 in , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , /by

Satellite technology has changed but SkyTruth remains true to its core principles, with an impressive track record of holding industries and governments accountable.

As 2021 draws to a close, SkyTruth is celebrating its 20th anniversary as an environmental tech nonprofit. It’s hard for us to believe how far SkyTruth — and technology — have come in those 20 years, and how much we have accomplished. In 2022 we’re poised to grow even more; doubling the size of the SkyTruth team and magnifying our ability to use technology to promote conservation for people and the planet. Read on to join us on our journey from very humble beginnings to high-tech innovators. 

SkyTruth’s mountaintop mining work exposes threats to endangered species

December 1, 2021 in , , /by

As geospatial engineer Christian Thomas continues to track mountaintop mining in Central Appalachia, his data adds to scientific understanding of the many impacts of this destructive practice.

SkyTruth has been monitoring the spread of mountaintop mining in Central Appalachia for years, sharing this information with researchers, conservation groups, and others to analyze and expose its true impacts. Now, working in conjunction with our partners at Defenders of Wildlife, we have been able to document just how severely mountaintop mining harms imperiled and endangered species. Read about our PLOS ONE paper on imperiled species here and look for 2020 data on the extent of mountaintop mining December 7.

SkyTruth Alerts helps Healthy Gulf track pollution

November 15, 2021 in , , , , , , , /by

With the intense concentration of polluters and frequent hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, the watchdog group Healthy Gulf relies on Alerts to flag dangerous incidents.

Naomi Yoder works as a geospatial analyst for the environmental group Healthy Gulf identifying pollution events, tracking trends and pushing for reform to reduce pollution. “SkyTruth Alerts is so useful. I can’t say it enough.”

Jona Raphael: Small town, big perspective

September 16, 2021 in , , , , , , /by

SkyTruth’s machine learning engineer, Jona Raphael, grew up in Shepherdstown, West Virginia; SkyTruth’s home base. But it was his travels around the world that convinced him to knock on our door.

“I’ve always had an interest in sustainability,” Jona says. At SkyTruth, that interest translates into developing Cerulean, a machine learning model that automatically processes thousands of satellite images a day to detect oil pollution in the ocean,

Environmental justice victory: Indonesian seaweed farmers win, 12 years after Montara oil spill

June 9, 2021 in , , , , , /by

WWF-Australia relied on SkyTruth’s monitoring of a disastrous oil spill to see the damage firsthand.Their testimony helped small-scale farmers recover damages from big oil.

A court in Australia finally ordered the company responsible for one of Australia’s worst oil spills to compensate Indonesian seaweed farmers harmed by that disaster, thanks in part to WWF-Australia using guidance from SkyTruth.