Google has just taken Street View one step further.
The search giant’s newest addition to Street View photography used a zipline to help document the upper canopy of an Amazon rainforest.
The latest images which are the result of a partnership with the Amazonas Sustainable Foundation (FAS), allow you to view the trees and other plant life in a section of the Amazon rainforest— from the forest floor to the upper canopy — through the lens of a zipline mounted camera.
FAS came up with the idea of the zipline and borrowed Google’s Trekker, Google’s special camera for capturing Street View photos, through its loan program, which lends the cameras out to nonprofits and other organizations.
“The big challenge was finding where to put the zipline,” says Karin Tuxen-Bettman, program manger for Google Earth who worked with FAS on the project. “This wasn’t an eco-tourism location where they had these sites already chosen and set up. They brought all their equipment by boat to the location and hiked several kilometers in to find this tree.”
The nonprofit also took the camera down the Rio Aripuanã and Rio Mariepauá rivers to highlight the communities of people who live in and around the forest and rivers.
“These people are the devoted stewards of the river and forests, and protect it by living with it, preventing the destruction of the trees and the life that depends on them,” Tuxen-Bettman wrote in a blog post.
This is not the first time time the organization has partnered with Google on a Street View project. Previously, FAS used the Street View Trike to map out parts of the Rio Negro Reserve and other areas protected by the Brazilian government.