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Kevin Davies from the University of Sydney in Australia has led a World Action project to measure the extent of forest degradation in the foot hills surrounding Siam Reap in Cambodia.

Siam Reap is the nearest town to the famous temple complex at Angkor Wat. In recent years it has expanded rapidly.

The project has been undertaken by APSARA (the national authority for the protection and management of Angkor and the region of Siem Reap) and the Cambodian Ministry of Environment.

The objective of the research is to assess changes to the forest in the Cambodian Protected Areas both geographically and over time. The research compared recent data acquired from Spot satellites with imagery held in archives. This was processed in ENVI's IDL software, to measure the changes. Based on these changes, the researchers can infer changes in forest management and forest use.

The research will provide regionally-specific methods for monitoring forest change. This is likely to be especially significant in the context of the UN-REDD program, which may be adopted at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009.

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