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[MUSIC]

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[Celio De Sousa] Liberia is an incredibly biodiverse country.

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The\hecosystems, like its forest and mangroves, have an impact on the country's economic plans,

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and as a\hresult, people's livelihoods and the environment.

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I'm part of NASA's technical team under\h
the partnership with Conservation International.\h\h

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NASA's role here is actually to provide the\hexpertise and the technical experience in\h\h

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remote sensing and earth observation that\hit has as an institution.

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So, part of my job is actually to leverage all of this knowledge

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and experience and data sets and different technologies that we have available

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through NASA to provide these nations with up-to-date, accurate,\hhigh-resolution land cover maps.

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This is important because the first step of\hecosystem accounting is to actually map the\h\h

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dynamics of ecosystems over time and we also must\hverify and compile biodiversity information with\h\h

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these land cover maps to get a complete\hpicture of ecosystems and their benefits.

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[Trond Larsen] Conservation International is working closely\hin this partnership with NASA to ultimately

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develop this first ever ecosystem map for Liberia.

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There's really two work streams that are coming together, and NASA has been leading the development\hof a land cover map,

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and CI has been leading the development of a map of

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potential ecosystem types,\hbecause this really didn't yet exist for Liberia.

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When we're talking about these benefits, we're\hreferring to natural capital, which is really\h\h

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the stocks of these natural resources, and that's

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estimated to be even more than half of the total wealth in countries such as Liberia.

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So there's\hreally a desperate need for a more cost-effective and replicable approach to assess

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what this wealth is coming from natural ecosystems,

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and the first step to do that is to combine

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where\hwe expect these potential ecosystems to occur with the actual known land cover that NASA has produced

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to come up with that final map of ecosystem extent. Because it's those differences

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in ecosystem\htypes that are providing those different benefits and

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we need to know where those are\h
spatially so that we can begin to understand how

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much and from where those benefits are\hcoming, so that we can then make decisions

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about how to protect them and maintain\hthose flows of benefits into the future.

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[Celio De Sousa] We are producing and offering these countries the\htools that they need to actually start accounting\h\h

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for their ecosystems and their ecosystem services,

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and bringing this information into their decision-making at a national level.

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So this will ultimately\htranslate into better policies for conservation, and

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that will bring essentially\hbenefits for their economy and the society in general.

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[Trond Larsen] So if we can regularly\h
update these accounts over time, then we can\h\h

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really understand those trends in how nature\his contributing to the economy and to human\h\h

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well-being, and we can use that information\hto make

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better decisions about how we can protect those ecosystems and maintain

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the flows\hof those benefits that people need.

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[Celio De Sousa] The government of Liberia formally adopted this map as the basis

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for the national system of ecosystem accounting. So, it is a huge deal for us,

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because this map will\hessentially serve as the starting point for them,