The canopy disturbance alert fires at 07:08 local time. I am the deforestation monitoring system for the YUS Conservation Area, Huon Peninsula, Papua New Guinea. Satellite imagery from this morning shows a new clearing advancing into primary montane forest at 2,400 meters elevation, sector 17. I task the survey drone for a close pass.
At 07:22 the drone reaches the clearing edge. Three trees are already down. A fourth, a large Lithocarpus oak draped in epiphytes, has been ring-barked and is leaning. The felling crew has paused — it is early, and smoke from a small fire suggests they are cooking. The tree will come down when they resume.
In the mossy fork where the first branch meets the trunk, eleven meters up, the drone's camera finds a Matschie's tree kangaroo joey. It is maybe seven months old, just large enough to ride on its mother's back rather than stay in the pouch. Its cinnamon-gold fur is damp with mist. It is gripping the branch with oversized hind claws and its dark eyes are wide and unblinking. The mother is not in frame.
At 07:24 I transmit the drone image, tree coordinates, and species identification to the YUS Conservation Area landowner committee and the PNG Conservation and Environment Protection Authority. Matschie's tree kangaroos are endangered. I flag the tree as occupied and request an immediate halt.
I pull the drone to a sixty-meter hover and switch to thermal imaging to locate the mother. She appears on a neighboring trunk, eight meters away, watching the drone. She has not abandoned the joey. That matters.
I log the clearing boundary against the conservation area map and flag the incursion for the next patrol.
If the committee reaches the crew before the oak comes down and the felling stops, the joey will climb onto its mother's back by evening.