Questions & Answers

What is Archaster?

Archaster is an ecological intelligence platform that reads the signals the land is already sending — vegetation patterns, water rhythms, species presence, forest loss — and translates them for practitioners who work with the living world. It's designed for regenerative designers, stewardship leads, restoration specialists, and anyone who understands that landscapes are communities of living beings.

How does Archaster help practitioners read the land?

You identify a place — by drawing on the map or uploading boundaries — and Archaster gathers what satellites and sensors have recorded: vegetation vitality, forest change, water presence, species occurrence. An AI grounded in ecological thinking then surfaces what the landscape is trying to tell you. It doesn't just answer questions; it reveals patterns.

Is Archaster a replacement for being present in a landscape?

No. Satellite data reveals patterns that feet on the ground might miss; feet on the ground reveal truths that satellites can't see. Both matter. Archaster is a way of seeing from above that complements presence below. It's not the whole picture — it's one lens among many.

What does vegetation vitality show me?

Six ways of seeing plant health from satellite: general vitality, canopy density, water presence, moisture stress, sparse cover, and burn damage. Each reveals a different aspect of how the land is faring. Select any time from 2015 to now and see what the vegetation was telling us then.

How does forest watch work?

Near-real-time alerts when tree cover changes, reading not just what's happening at a site but what's approaching. Buffer zone analysis at 500m and 2km reveals encroachment patterns. When the forest around a place is under more pressure than the place itself, we name that: intact but threatened.

What does "Who Lives Here" show me?

The pollinators, predators, and soil organisms in any landscape — not as resources, but as relatives. 2.4 billion species records organized into 9 functional groups: apex predators, large herbivores, pollinators (primary and specialist), soil engineers, aquatic species, ecosystem engineers (plant and animal), and keystone species. When a group is missing, that absence tells you something about the health of the whole.

What is "water memory"?

40 years of surface water history. Where water has retreated, where it returns seasonally, where it has been lost permanently. The hydrological story of a place: seasonal rhythms, permanent losses, new bodies that might signal dams or subsidence. The water remembers what we've forgotten.

Can I track ecological recovery over time?

Yes. Compare any two time periods side by side. Witness retreat or recovery in vegetation health, deforestation pressure, and water presence. See the land heal, or understand where it needs support. The temporal view is where patterns become trajectories.

How does Archaster support regenerative practice?

The AI is grounded in ecological thinking, regenerative principles, and the understanding that every landscape is a community of living beings with something to say. It adapts to your professional lens — practitioner, designer, researcher, steward — and every claim is traced to the data that supports it. It doesn't just answer; it reveals.

What frameworks inform the AI?

Ecological thinking, circular economy, regenerative design, and nature-positive principles. The AI treats vague sustainability claims with appropriate skepticism and demands specific observations before drawing conclusions. It's informed by reporting frameworks (CSRD, TNFD) but doesn't generate compliance documents.

Can Archaster support Science Based Targets for Nature (SBTN)?

Yes — and the alignment runs deeper than compliance. SBTN asks companies to locate themselves within nature, understand what they depend on, and take responsibility for what they affect. That's not a reporting exercise. It's a shift in how a business understands its relationship to living systems.

Step 1 — Locate and Assess asks: where does your organisation interact with nature, and what is the condition of those places? Archaster answers this directly — upload your locations and receive immediate ecological context for each one. Ecoregion and biome. Species records. Forest condition. Water history. Protected and sensitive areas. Invasive species. The living context of every place your organisation touches.

Step 2 — Interpret and Prioritize asks: which of those interactions matter most, and where should attention go first? Archaster's ecological intelligence layer helps you read the signals — which landscapes are under pressure, which functional species are absent, which sites carry the greatest ecological risk or responsibility. The AI interprets this through your professional lens, so the analysis speaks to the decisions you actually need to make.

Step 3 — Measure, set and disclose targets asks: what is changing, and are we part of the recovery? Archaster provides the temporal foundation across two of SBTN's five nature realms:

Land: Vegetation health and land cover change from 2020 — aligned with the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework baseline. Tree cover change data from 2001.

Freshwater: 40 years of surface water memory (1984–2021) — where water has been, where it has retreated, where it returns seasonally. Plus near-real-time surface moisture and water detection through NDWI and NDMI, updated every 5 days.

Together these layers give you a satellite-verified, peer-reviewed record of how the land and water at your priority locations have changed — and how they are changing now.

Full SBTN target setting across all five nature realms requires specialist ecological input that goes beyond what satellite data alone can provide. But Archaster gives you the ecological foundation to enter that process knowing what you're dealing with — and to watch whether things are getting better.

Because that's ultimately what the targets are for.

What data sources does Archaster read from?

Peer-reviewed, openly licensed sources maintained by research institutions: Sentinel-2 satellite imagery (every 5 days at 10m), Global Forest Watch alerts, GBIF biodiversity records (2.4B+), JRC Surface Water (40 years), WWF Ecoregions, ESA WorldCover. The collective memory of what the land has witnessed.

How current is the data?

Satellite imagery updates every 5 days. Forest alerts are near-real-time. Species records update continuously. Water history covers 1984–2021. The land is always communicating; these are the ears we have.

Who is Archaster for?

Regenerative designers who need to understand ecological context before designing with places. Restoration practitioners who need to read a landscape's current state and trajectory. Stewardship leads accountable for landscape health. Sourcing teams who understand that supply chains are relationships with living systems, not just transactions.

Can Archaster monitor multiple landscapes at once?

Yes. Upload hundreds of site boundaries. Understand the ecological state of every landscape you depend on. Monitor the places that sustain your work, track changes across every site, every quarter, and surface the alerts that matter. Stewardship at scale.

Is Archaster a compliance tool?

No. It's a way of seeing, not a checkbox. The data can inform compliance processes, but the platform doesn't certify anything. Compliance determinations are yours to make.

Does Archaster predict the future?

No. It reads what is and what was. From that you can sense what might be coming — patterns become trajectories — but the future isn't written in the data. It's written in what we do next.