 ESA
maps satellite help for gorilla guardians
European Space Agency
A joint ESA/UNESCO project to protect African gorillas with data from
space is entering its second phase, an official from a conservation programme
told an ESA workshop.
Known as BeGO, for Build Environment for Gorilla, the project will provide
Earth observation imagery and products to conservation groups and authorities
that are monitoring and protecting the
habitats of mountain gorillas in national parks located in Uganda, Rwanda
and the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). Data from ESA satellites
will help produce maps, detect changes over time in how land is used,
and create three-dimensional digital elevation models of the terrain,
according to Maryke Gray, regional monitoring officer with the International
Gorilla Conservation
Program (IGCO).
Speaking to a workshop held in late January at ESA's ESRIN facility on
the Treaty Enforcement Services using Earth Observation (TESEO) effort,
Gray said the space-based maps and analytical tools will allow better
insights into the gorillas’ habitats than possible with only on-the-ground
inspections.
"The advantages of remote sensing is that it allows us to monitor
extensive areas and monitor remote regions with difficult access,"
she said.
Analysis of land-use changes will be employed, for example, to study
habitat areas that are being deforested for agriculture, assess the impact
of refugee camps at park boundaries and analyse how volcanic activity
affects the vegetation in the areas of interest.
BeGO is a follow-on programme to a joint ESA-UNESCO agreement signed
in 2001 for a bilateral project in support of the World Heritage Convention
to demonstrate remote-sensing methods in east and central African habitats.
This pilot project, Surveillance of Gorilla Habitat (SOGHA), also was
designed to support the creation of a UNESCO remote-sensing unit at WHC,
along with capacity building in the African countries, Gray said.
Under BeGO, detailed maps will be created at a 1:50 000 scale, compared
with the 1:200 000-scale maps provided under SOGHA. Layers of geographical
and other features will then be added to incorporate such features as
altimetry to create topological maps, roads, settlements, park boundaries,
and vegetation types. While the Earth observation data, maps and land-use
analyses highlight the advantages of space-based data, Gray said, there
are limitations to what can be accomplished as far as detecting direct
threats, such as poaching, to the gorillas. "Clearly remote sensing
cannot substitute for all activities," the conservation official
said.
Such threats to the endangered mountain gorillas – brought to the
attention of the world by the work of the late primatologist Diane Fossey
– are an ever-present reality to the conservation officials
and national authorities working to preserve them. In late January, three
Rwandan poachers were convicted of killing two mountain gorillas and stealing
a baby one, according to recent Reuters news story. The poachers had planned
to sell the baby abroad and had stolen it in May, killing the two female
adults protecting it. In a separate incident in October, poachers killed
four other gorillas living along the Rwanda-Congo border, news reports
stated.
But thanks to the efforts of IGCO and other conservation groups, there
is room for cautious optimism that the gorillas’ numbers are on the
increase. According to estimates from the World Wildlife Fund, one of
ICGO’s parent organisations, groundbreaking work by conservation
groups has helped the population grow from 620 in 1989 to approximately
674 as of last October.
Two of the gorillas’ habitats, the Congo’s Virunga National
Park and the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda, have been designated
World Heritage sites. The two other habitats in Rwanda and Uganda are
under consideration for the designation.
The involvement of UNESCO and the World Heritage Convention is part of
a broader plan to use Earth observation data more fully in monitoring
the risks to the man-made and natural sites that have
been deemed to have "outstanding universal value," explained
Mario Hernandez, head of UNESCO’s Information Management Programme,
at the TESEO workshop.
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