Brazil Indians, Google to Fight Logging

In this undated photo released by Google Earth, Surui Indians' reservation is seen to the east of Ministro Andreazza and to the north of Cacoal in the state of Rondonia, Brazil. The reservation's edges contrast sharply with the populated, deforested areas. A Brazilian Indian tribe is linking up with Google Earth to try to capture vivid images that could help stop loggers and miners from deforesting the jungle and digging for gold on its vast Amazon reservation. (AP Photo/Google Earth) (AP)

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- A Brazilian Indian tribe is linking up with Google Earth to try to capture vivid images that could help stop loggers and miners from deforesting the jungle and digging for gold on its vast Amazon reservation.

Though the project is still in the planning stages for a remote area that doesn't even have Internet access yet, the tribe's chief and Google Inc. hope their unusual alliance will reduce illegal rainforest destruction where government enforcement is spotty at best.

Google Earth, which enables anyone who downloads its free software to see satellite images and maps of most of the world, is increasingly being called upon for humanitarian purposes by groups who see the technology's potential.

In another initiative unveiled this year, Google and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum are calling attention to atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan. And last year, Google Earth joined forces with the United Nations Environmental Program to show users areas of environmental destruction, and with the Jane Goodall Institute to highlight its research on chimpanzees and African deforestation.

"At Google, we feel an obligation to help groups like this when it is so clear that our tools can make an important positive impact," spokeswoman Megan Quinn said.

Eventually, Chief Almir Narayamoga Surui envisions many of the 1,200 members of his Surui tribe using computers with satellite Internet connections and high-resolution images from Google Earth to police all corners of their 618,000-acre reservation.

They could then offer proof to authorities that the destruction is occurring and demand action, or possibly spook the loggers and miners away because they would know they are being monitored, said Surui, who uses his tribes' name as his last, like many Brazilian Indians.

The loggers and miners "will certainly be scared, because we'll be watching all the time and denouncing the invasions," the chief said in an e-mail interview from Switzerland, where he was meeting with environmentalists and United Nations officials.

Surui came up with the idea some time ago when he was tooling around Google Earth and saw thin whitish lines suggesting deforestation in the vast verdant swath that popped up when he zoomed in on his reservation.

With help from the U.S.-based Amazon Conservation Team non-profit group, Surui met last month with Google Earth executives in California, wowing them with a vision of how Google technology could help stop the devastation, said Quinn.

"If you look at the Surui land today in Google Earth, you'll see their "island" of healthy green rainforest is surrounded almost completely by clear-cut, barren land," she said. "The stark contrast at their boundary is dramatic, and conveys vividly what is at stake."

Google Earth will now try to buy better satellite images of the Surui reservation from vendors to ramp up the quality of shots that turn extremely blurry when users try to focus in closer on the reservation, Quinn said.