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Voyage around the world in 600 metres (Forwarded)



 
 
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Default Voyage around the world in 600 metres (Forwarded)

ESA News
http://www.esa.int

31 March 2006

Voyage around the world in 600 metres

UNESCO has unveiled a frieze of satellite images of Earth at its Paris
headquarters building to give visitors a view of the planet from a
strikingly fresh perspective.

The 'Belle île en ciel' exhibition -- supported by ESA, Parc Européen du
Volcanisme, PlanetObserver, Spot Image, RATP and L'Express -- opened on 29
March in the presence of UNESCO Director General Koïchiro Matsuura and ESA
Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain.

The exhibition -- organised by UNESCO as part of its 60th birthday
celebrations -- essentially serves to highlight the planet's fragility.
The frieze includes some 60 charts graphically illustrating the main
environmental challenges facing humanity in seeking to protect our common
heritage: managing the water cycle, biodiversity, pollution,
deforestation, global warming, managing natural disasters, plus education,
communication, dialogue among civilisations and the preservation of
specific cultures.

Humanity's greatest heritage is the Earth itself, this truly beautiful
'island' in the cosmos, home -- for better or for worse -- to over 6.5
billion inhabitants. But the advent of observation satellites is making us
increasingly aware of the limits of our home planet.

Studying the environment -- using ESA satellites such as Meteosat, ERS and
Envisat -- has significantly contributed to highlighting serious ongoing
issues concerning climate change. The data gathered are used today to
build up models of the implications of such changes for the world of
tomorrow.

To improve and sustain that modelling, ESA has under its Living Planet
initiative set up satellite programmes that are designed to enhance our
understanding of major green issues such as ocean circulation, ocean
salinity, atmospheric dynamics and thinning polar ice.

ESA is also, together with the EU, preparing the way for the Global
Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) initiative, which aims to
coordinate Earth observation from space for the protection of the
environment and local populations. The issues highlighted by this
exhibition underpin the many joint projects set up since 2000 by UNESCO
and ESA.

These projects aim to harness space technologies in order to address
humanitarian needs, protect the environment, manage disasters and promote
education and culture. The global coverage provided by satellites and
their capacity to fly repeatedly over a given region make them a key tool
for managing our planet.

With this in mind, in 2001 ESA and UNESCO set up the Build Environment for
Gorillas (BEGo) project. This involves using satellite radar and optical
imaging to help protect the gorilla habitat in the mountains of Ruanda,
Uganda and the Congo. Special tools have been developed from the resulting
data in cooperation with the main interested parties, which include the
World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the International Gorilla Conservation
Programme (PICG) and the WildLife Conservation Society.

Following the 2002 Earth Summit on Sustainable Development in
Johannesburg, ESA again partnered with UNESCO in starting up the TIGER
initiative, which uses satellite data to manage water resources in Africa.
Responding to in-situ demand expressed by various parties, this initiative
draws together over 150 organisations throughout the continent -- water
agencies, remote-sensing centres, universities -- under the banner of its
various activities, workshops and training programmes. TIGER is thus
playing its part in the decision-making process and in improving
technical, human and institutional capabilities in a joint effort to place
sustainable management of Africa's water resources on a secure footing.

Under the Data User Element of its Earth Observation programme, ESA will
be continuing to provide such support, supplying UNESCO with
remote-sensing data on its listed World Heritage sites and on the
Biosphere Reserve in Central America. It will shortly be undertaking a
feasibility study which could in 2008 become a full-scale project,
extended to cover other sites around the world.

Since 2003, ESA has been contributing to the protection of 812 listed
sites under UNESCO's Convention concerning the Protection of World
Cultural and Natural Heritage. Under a cooperation agreement, UNESCO is
able to use data gathered by ESA satellites to help monitor and manage
listed World Heritage sites.

In Depth

* Observing the Earth
http://www.esa.int/esaEO/index.html
* The Living Planet
http://www.esa.int/esaLP/index.html
* GMES
http://www.esa.int/esaLP/LPgmes.html
* Data User Programme
http://dup.esrin.esa.it/
* BEGo website
http://212.100.178.135/bego/
* Earth images
http://www.esa.int/earthimages

Related links

* UNESCO
http://www.unesco.org

[NOTE: Images supporting this release are available at
http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEMBVW59CLE_index_1.html ]


 




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