Cork firm to drag €37bn forestry sector into tech era

The European Space Agency will be monitoring trees from space in conjunction with a Cork company.

Treemetrics has partnered with the ESA to provide a new service that is set to revolutionise the forestry sector. Real-Time Forest Intelligence is set to drag the €37bn forestry sector into the 21st century as lumber jacks will move from measuring tapes to satellites to choose trees for felling.

Treemetrics has already saved its clients €7.5bn.

The Real-Time Forest Intelligence service will, for the very first time, bring live 3D forestry data to mobile devices and machinery anywhere in the world, allowing harvesting machines to respond immediately to changing market demands for timber, while massively reducing waste.

Chief executive of Treemetrics Enda Keane explained how the company’s software will allow forestry companies to make more informed choices about which trees to harvest.

He said: “This is a huge step for the global forestry industry. Until now, timber production requirement was only established after the forest had been cut, leading to enormous waste. The Treemetrics Real-Time Forest Intelligence service will completely revolutionise this process by delivering our rich forestry data to harvesters in real-time.

“This is only possible through the years of research and development invested into our platform and is simply impossible for traditional measurement methods.”

Treemetrics has become known as ‘the Google of forestry’. The company has revolutionised the sector using technology and algorithms created over five years of deep research and development.

Irish technology entrepreneur Dylan Collins was quick to spot the value in Treemetrics. He currently chairs the company’s board.

Mr Collins said: “Treemetrics’ technology is genuinely revolutionising the global forestry industry. They are one of the most important companies in the world right now and I’mincredibly excited to be involved.”

The company has already indexed 11 million trees, making it by far the largest forestry analytics database in the world.

The technology used by Treemetrics is used by some of the largest forestry companies in the world in the United States, Ireland, Norway, Finland, Britain and Australia.