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

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

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and as a result, people's livelihoods and the environment.

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

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NASA's role here is actually to provide the expertise and the technical experience in  

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remote sensing and earth observation that it 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, high-resolution land cover maps.

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This is important because the first step of ecosystem accounting is to actually map the  

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dynamics of ecosystems over time and we also must verify and compile biodiversity information with  

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

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[Trond Larsen] Conservation International is working closely in 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 of 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, because this really didn't yet exist for Liberia.

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When we're talking about these benefits, we're referring to natural capital, which is really  

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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 really 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 we 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 types that are providing those different benefits and

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

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

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

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

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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 translate into better policies for conservation, and

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

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

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really understand those trends in how nature is contributing to the economy and to human  

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well-being, and we can use that information to make

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better decisions about how we can protect those ecosystems and maintain

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the flows of 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 essentially serve as the starting point for them,

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not only for ecosystem accounting, but for other conservation and planning efforts as well.

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