Morning Edition · Friday, October 23, 2026Published at 2:19 AM EDT · New York

Google DeepMind Publishes a 10-Meter Global Map Separating Primary Forest From Plantations and Tree Crops

The map's six classes follow the definitions of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the EU Deforestation Regulation, so it bears directly on importers of cocoa, coffee, palm oil and rubber.

Google DeepMind released a global map on October 22 that assigns every 10-meter patch of land on Earth to a forest type. The underlying dataset, Forest Typology (ForTy) v1, described in an Earth System Science Data preprint, covers the year…