Case Study: Wildlife Conservation Society achieves accurate deforestation monitoring and expanded forest protection with Trimble eCognition

Protecting Critical Wildlife Habitats through Geospatial Technology

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in Lao PDR, working with the Nam Et-Phou Louey management unit and the Lao–German CliPAD project, set out to protect nearly 600,000 hectares of mountainous forest that host about 40 threatened species, including one of Indochina’s last tiger populations. Their challenge was to determine whether the area could be developed as a REDD carbon‑credit project — which required accurate, scalable mapping of deforestation across heterogeneous terrain and multiple time periods.

With support from Planet Action and Trimble eCognition software, WCS analyzed Landsat imagery from 2000–2010 using object‑based image analysis to classify forest vs. non‑forest, achieving roughly 80% mapping accuracy and enabling a detailed feasibility study. The analysis showed deforestation in the protected area was too low for a standalone REDD project, so WCS, CliPAD and the Lao government scaled the effort to a province‑wide conservation pilot and continue to use eCognition to monitor change and support broader REDD initiatives.

Wildlife Conservation Society

Colin Moore

Regional Advisor