"We suddenly have Manhattan-type prices for land, so we'd better have a city here, " says Lanni.

FORBES: Companies and People

The Stanford University professor of biological sciences devotes a large amount of her time to taking a business perspective on land and water as a type of natural capital.

FORBES: Stanford Professor Uses Software To Value Nature

The satellite images picked out the right type of afforested land, and topography, which, when combined with other data on soil types, rainfall, and temperature, produced a clear "Loa Loa map" of several African countries, including Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

BBC: Danger worms tracked from space

Forest fragmentation opens the door to invasive species such as the cowbird, a type of blackbird that normally prefers open land, said Bridget Stutchbury, a biologist at York University in Toronto who studies forest songbirds.

WSJ: Northeast drilling boom threatens forest wildlife