Data
Everything on this site is free to use, including in news stories, reports and research.
Downloads
These files hold the site's current data: the land cleared in the 12 months up to 26 October 2026. They are replaced every week, and each one carries its date.
- places.csvEvery patch: size, dates, licence class, nearest town, district and location. Opens in Excel or Google Sheets.
- places.geojsonThe same, as map points, with links to the before and after pictures. Opens in QGIS or geojson.io.
- trend.jsonHectares cleared in the 12 months before each point, one point a month, with the share that has no licence to mine.
- summary.jsonThe latest totals, by licence class and district.
Monthly records
Each month's totals are kept as they were, so you can see how they changed.
What is not here
We do not publish the outlines of mining licences or who holds them. The register belongs to the Minerals Commission, and you can see both on its public portal. We leave the names out because a licence on the land does not show who cleared it.
Where the data comes from
We built this from other people's open data. Each source sets its own terms for reuse.
- Land that lost its plant coverNASA OPERA land disturbance data (DIST-ALERT-HLS). NASA open data with no limits on use: free to use for anything.
- Before and after picturesCopernicus Sentinel-2 images, from Earth Search. Free to use, with credit to Copernicus.
- Licences on the landThe Minerals Commission's public register. We use it only to say what kind of licence covers a patch, and do not republish it.
- Forest zoneRESOLVE Ecoregions 2017 (Dinerstein and others). Free to use, with credit (CC BY 4.0).
- Rivers and the land that drains to each water plantHydroSHEDS: HydroBASINS and HydroRIVERS (Lehner and Grill 2013). Free to use, with credit.
- District namesgeoBoundaries. Free to use, with credit (CC BY 4.0).
- Town and village namesOpenStreetMap. Free to use, with credit. A new database built from it must be shared on the same terms (ODbL).