unep.org     Flying' around a virtual planet earth, zooming in on environmental hotspots and comparing today's crisis zones with yesterday's areas of natural beauty: All this has become a reality today thanks to a partnership between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Google Earth.

United Nations Environmental Program – The UNEP overlay for Google Earth includes successive time-stamped images illustrating 100 areas of extreme environmental degradation around the world. From the deforestation of the Amazon to the fallout of raging forest fires in Sub-Sahara Africa and the decline of the Aral Sea in Central Asia, this before-and-after imagery spanning the past 30 years offers users an online resource for learning about the environmental crisis zones around the world.

Images of retreating glaciers and melting ice in polar and mountain areas, explosive growth of cities such as Las Vegas, forest loss in the Amazon, rapid oil and gas development in Wyoming and Canada, forest fires across sub-Saharan Africa and the decline of the Aral Sea in Central Asia and Lake Chad in Africa: this and much more is being presented in a series of 'before and after' satellite images of our changing environment to over 100 million Google Earth users worldwide.

Beginning today, Google Earth – Google’s 3D virtual world browser – will feature UNEP: Atlas of our Changing Environment, offering satellite images of 100 environmental hotspots from around the world. The project builds on the success of UNEP’s very popular hardcover release One Planet, Many People: Atlas of our Changing Environment, see http://www.na.unep.net/OnePlanetManyPeople/index.php.

After downloading the software from Google Earth users can access the material via the "Featured Content" section under "Layers".

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