ImageTree, CATHALAC Collaborate to Build Carbon-credit Ecomarket Infrastructure in Latin America, the Caribbean; Sign 5-year Agreement

Will deliver national IPCC Tier-3 carbon and forest biomass baseline inventories, monitoring systems, and support biodiversity conservation, climate change programs

MORGANTOWN, W.Va., and CITY OF KNOWLEDGE, Panama, November 25, 2008 — To enable Latin American and Caribbean countries to financially benefit from emerging carbon-credit markets, ImageTree Corporation and the Water Center for the Humid Tropics of Latin America and the Caribbean (CATHALAC) have signed a five-year exclusive agreement to collaborate on delivering cost-effective carbon and forest biomass baseline inventories and monitoring systems on a national scale.

CATHALAC, which is a regional intergovernmental organization supported by such entities as the U. S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the World Bank, will lead this climate change/carbon initiative with ImageTree providing forest baseline inventory, monitoring data and appropriate technical assistance.

“This collaboration will provide the foundational integrity required for the countries that CATHALAC serves to participate in carbon-credit ecomarkets emerging from such initiatives as the United Nations Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (UN-REDD) Programme and the World Bank’s avoided deforestation program,” said CATHALAC Director Emilio Sempris.

“As these types of programs and markets develop,” Sempris continued, “the requirements for capital market confidence in the valuation of carbon credits can be met by the transparency and reliability that ImageTree technology uniquely provides.

“There is an increasing focus on measuring and monitoring carbon and forest biomass at a national or sub-national level so that protection in one area would not lead to deforestation elsewhere, which is called leakage,” added Sempris. “We will work with ImageTree to create systems that facilitate a government’s making information available to the various constituencies considered appropriate.”

“All ecomarket projects within a country will be developed using the same disciplined infrastructure, and all will be measured and monitored with the same precision and accuracy,” said ImageTree CEO Mark Redlus. “This approach allows for economic efficiencies and economies of scale,” Redlus continued, “while providing carbon-credit assurance in a highly transparent system that creates unparalleled credibility.”

“The technology platform,” said ImageTree Vice President of Ecomarket Development Chuck Anderson, “will be designed to facilitate meeting multiple international accreditation standards and methodologies, including IPCC Tier-3 requirements, the most challenging requirements of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“IPCC Tier-3 status requires that countries use factors based on comprehensive field sampling in estimating and monitoring forest carbon stocks,” Anderson continued. “With ImageTree’s advanced technology and patented ForestSense system that combines remotely sensed data, imagery and/or other remotely sensed inputs with field correlation and feature extraction algorithms, we will be able to deploy an efficient and cost-effective model that will accelerate each country’s pursuit of that status.”

“As part of this collaboration effort,” said Sempris, “ImageTree will be able to use CATHALAC’s NASA-developed, high-tech satellite visualization system called SERVIR, which monitors the environment of Central America.” SERVIR’s data center, he noted, is located at CATHALAC headquarters in Panama and integrates environmental data from a variety of sources.

“We are working with a variety of funding resources throughout the forestry and carbon communities, including multilateral institutions, private funds, and programs,” Sempris added. “And there is considerable interest at the national level in what we are developing.”

“As more and more countries commit to reducing, sequestering, offsetting or avoiding their greenhouse gas emissions, said Redlus, “the more our collaboration with CATHALAC will realize its value.

“In time, what we believe will emerge from this effort will be the international standard by which nations can address the complex considerations of monetization of forest assets for their protection,” he said.

About ImageTree Corporation
ImageTree is “the precision forestry company” that provides accurate and cost-effective baseline assessments of forest assets, including biodiversity and carbon-stock assessments, and consistent monitoring of those assets. Its patented process combines remote sensing, automated feature-extraction algorithms and advanced mathematics. ImageTree’s advanced technology, scientific approach and patented ForestSense system, which enables assessment of carbon sequestration, enables superior site-specific economic, environmental and sustainable-forest decision making.

The company, whose customers include timber investment management organizations (TIMOs) and real-estate investment trusts (REITs), has academic relationships with the Forest Nutrition Cooperative; University of Georgia’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources; Yale University’s Global Institute for Sustainable Forestry; and the Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry and Consumer Sciences at West Virginia University. For more information, visit www.imagetreecorp.com.

About CATHALAC
The Water Center for the Humid Tropics of Latin America and the Caribbean [Centro del Agua del Trópico Húmedo para América Latina y El Caribe (CATHALAC)] is a regional intergovernmental organization based in Panama. Located in the City of Knowledge, on former Fort Clayton near the Panama Canal, the center works to improve the quality of life in the countries it serves, by promoting sustainable human development through applied scientific research, education and technology. For more information, visit www.cathalac.org.

Note: ImageTree, ForestSense, and The Precision Forestry Company are trademarks of ImageTree Corporation. The names of other actual companies, organizations and/or products/services mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.