Afghanistan is synonymous with conflict. While most analyses have focused on the human actors—the intractable web of foreign fighters, international terrorist organizations and fleeing refugees—the key to understanding conflict is the environment. Given the severity of violence, it may seem odd to use the environment as a lens to understand an active conflict zone. But in fact, it is through these complex social-environmental relationships that one can begin to unravel the regional drivers of vulnerability.

What can you see from space? Ed Lu, the science officer from Expedition Seven aboard the International Space Station, states that people can see an awful lot from space: ocean, desert, forest, glaciers, ; even things as small as a road, harbor and ships. And with rapid development of better sensors and remote sensing techniques, people have access to ever more information through the remote sensing images including monitoring forests. Today, scientists are developing an index to assess the healthiness, density and size of forests in Indonesia.