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Press Release
16 July 2008
Brazilian satellite to tackle deforestation using British-made hi-tech camera
A new state-of-the-art Brazilian satellite will carry a British-made high
resolution camera to help monitor deforestation around the world, the Brazilian
and UK Governments announced today. Amazonia-1 will be launched in 2011 and go
around the Earth 14 times a day at a distance of 400 miles.
The photos will provide some of the highest resolution images ever taken of
global forests, with each photo pixel showing 10 metres of actual terrain. This
will make it easier to see where the natural habitat has been disturbed. The new
images will allow Brazil and African countries to better detect and tackle
illegal activity in the two largest rainforests in the world.
The photos and other data will be made freely available to the public and
governments.
Gareth Thomas, the UK’s Trade and Development Minister said:
"Globally more than a billion people depend on forests to provide them with
shelter, food and a livelihood. But if action is not taken immediately to tackle
deforestation then one of the most outstanding natural wonders of the world will
continue to be destroyed.
"That is why the leadership shown by the Brazilian Government to help tackle the
problem is timely and greatly welcomed by the UK. We hope that the collaboration
on Amazonia-1 is the first step in a productive and mutually beneficial
endeavour by our governments on satellite monitoring to tackle deforestation and
climate change."
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Gilberto Camara, Director of the Brazilian Space Agency, said:
"Amazonia-1 represents an important step in the construction of an integrated
global earth observation network for the public good. With this project Brazil
and the UK will be at the forefront of free data provision, which will play a
crucial role in helping other countries, especially in Africa, to monitor their
own land use and forests."
The joint initiative stems from discussions begun between Governments and
researchers in 2007, during the UK-Brazil Year of Co-operation on Science and
Technology. The collaboration forms part of the continuing UK-Brazil Partnership
in Science and Innovation. The collaboration was announced at the 60th Annual
Meeting of the Brazilian Society for Progress in Science.
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Notes to editors
1. The Brazilian Space Agency will make the data available free to the public
and other Governments. As such, other tropical forest countries will directly
benefit from the new camera as they will have access to data for their forest
monitoring. There are plans to establish a ground station in tropical Africa, to
aid monitoring of the Congo Basin tropical rainforests.
2. Amazonia -1 is expected to be in a low-earth, sun-synchronous orbit of 400
miles altitude. The high definition camera will be made by the Rutherford
Appleton Laboratory based in Oxfordshire, England. The camera will have an all
refractive optical design and use radiation tolerant glasses. Applications for
the camera include agricultural surveillance, forestry, habitat, and coastal
monitoring, surveillance of environmental change and offshore pollution,
disaster monitoring and cartography in remote areas.
3. The Brazilian satellite will be built at a cost of £14 million and the
British-made camera will be funded by the UK Government at a cost of £1 million.
4. The Amazon River basin is the largest river basin in the world, covering
close to 6 million square kilometres and discharging approximately 175 million
litres per second (20% of the combined discharge of all rivers on earth). The
Amazon holds about 50% of the world’s biodiversity. Over 22 million people live
in the Brazilian Amazon and depend on it for their livelihoods.
5. The Congo rainforest is the second largest in the world after the Amazon and
covers an area twice the size of France. It is the second largest tropical
forest in the world containing 26% of the world’s remaining rainforest. It
extends across six countries in Central Africa: Cameroon, Central African
Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the
Republic of Congo.
6. The Brazil Space Agency is a well-respected global centre of expertise in
earth observation. They are the official, independent providers of the data used
by the Brazilian Government to monitor the highly complex changes in
deforestation rates in Brazil.
For further details please contact Yasser Mehmood in the DFID press office on
020 7023 1753 or y-mehmood@dfid.gov.uk.
