Mongabay: A plan to create a pan-tropical map of forest cover and carbon stocks is moving ahead with data now available on Google Earth, reports the Woods Hole Research Center. The project, which uses cloud-penetrating radar to assess forest cover and structure, is part of an effort to provide a means to monitor and report deforestation, a critical component of the REDD mechanism, which aims to compensate tropical countries for reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation. The …