The Google sign outside its headquarters in Mountain View
© AFP/File Nichlas Kamm

London, Sept 14: Internet search giant Google has entered into a partnership with UN Environment Program (UNEP) under which the company’s popular mapping program, Google Earth will provide the before-and-after satellite images of 100 global environmental hotspots.

The images are being targeted to expose the rampant forest destruction, retreating glaciers and explosive urban growth that is destroying the environment.

Google Earth, which offers satellite images of the planet, has about 100 million users worldwide, who will now be able to use the program to access UNEP's "Atlas of Our Changing Environment".

"These satellite pictures are a wake-up call to all of us to look at the sometimes devastating changes we are wreaking on our planet," New Scientists quoted UNEP chief Achim Steiner as saying.

He described the selection photographs as "spectacular imagery" that offered a compelling "new way of visualizing the dangers facing our planet today", and said it would lead to greater awareness and concern about ecological damage.

"By tapping into the global Google community, we are able to reach out to millions of people who can mobilize and make a difference," Steiner said.

Among the 100 "hotspots" included are the dwindling Amazon rainforest, melting polar ice caps, and the startling declines of Central Asia's Aral Sea and Africa's Lake Chad, shown in satellite images captured between 1963 and 2004. The rapid urbanization of the US city of Las Vegas, between 1973 and 2000, and southern Chinese metropolis of Shenzen, between 1979 and 2004, is also shown.

Other crisis points highlighted include the rampant destruction of mangrove forests in Southeast Asia, notably in Thailand and Malaysia, and the effects of open-pit oil exploration in the Athabasca region of Canada's Alberta province. (ANI)