Category: Member News

Munich 5.7.2005

GAF is active in Indonesia under contract for the Coral Reef Rehabilitation and Management Program, Phase II.

GAF AG, an international active geo-information company,
provides its services for the Indonesian Institute of Sciences,
Jakarta, in a project funded by a loan from the Asian Development Bank,
Manila. The contract covers 6 districts in Sumatra and is part of the
COREMAP II activities.

Indonesia`s coral reef resources

Indonesia
has 17,600 islands with 80,000 km of shorelines and is known to have
the richest coral reefs in the world. The coral reefs of Indonesia
serve many purposes for their adjacent coastal communities: natural
barriers that protect the beach; natural barriers that are there to be
modified to make boat launching less difficult; habitats for locally
consumed seafood and habitats for seafood harvest and cage rearing for
net income generation to the village. The coral reefs, however, are
facing immense threats from human activities such as overexploitation,
destructive fishing, and pollution, which have become widespread
throughout the country.

CRITC Project

Using
coral reef resources properly will sustain and increase their value to
coastal villagers in the long term as habitats for diverse fisheries,
sources of building materials, and protectors of shorelines. CRITC
(Coral Reef Information and Training Centers) has the objective of
ensuring the timely provision of directed research, monitoring results
and information necessary to support collaborative coral reef
management. CRITC is aimed at the wise and sustainable use of coral
reef resource systems and is part of COREMAP Phase II and its
institutional strengthening component.

CRITC advocates a ‘sustainable use of
renewable resources’ paradigm that requires a growth in the mindset of
partners from one which has been focused on methods, to one which
focuses on the capacity of coral reef resources to be sustainably used
and modified by the populations. It promulgates the ideas of coral
reefs and their resources as dynamic and constantly renewable entities,
with substantial capacity to continue to support the needs of people
(when carefully managed), but with ecological limits on that capacity
and with serious environmental costs and opportunity losses for
exceeding that capacity.

What that capacity is varies greatly
between coral reef locations and is dependent on the location, area and
height of the reefs, the local human population size, the extent to
which they exploit the reefs, and the effects of outside influences,
such as renegade fishers from other districts or even other countries,
and from natural disturbances. The tsunami of December 26th 2004 and
earthquake of March 27th 2005 are tragic examples of the latter,
highlighting both the physical and psychological trauma that
unmanageable external events can bring.

The project comprises the following components and activities:

1. monitoring of district reef health and fisheries
2. collection, analysis and dissemination of socio economic data
3. support to coral reef management education
4. empowerment of its members through appropriate and
   effective recruitment and training, technological support and an
   effective work program
5. development of activity plans for the implementation of a strong National CRITC network, with a central
6. node in Jakarta and district nodes in six sites around Sumatra, and the establishment of strong links between them
7. strengthening of already existing network elements through
   establishment of infrastructure, institutional capability and training
8. embedding local knowledge
9. develop National CRITC so that it can grow by itself and
   becomes recognized as Indonesia‘s premier point of access to global
   coral reef information resources
10. development of organizational, human and institutional capabilities and connections
11. generation of a Program Implementation Manual

The project started in January 2005 and is
expected to be completed by July 2007. The project area covers six
districts of Sumatra. A project performance indicator for this
Consultancy Project will be the extent to which Central and District
CRITC leaders and staff are guided and supported by the manual‘s plans.

GAF AG is the lead firm in association
with Sagric International Pty. Ltd. of Australia and PT. Geosys
Intipiranti of Indonesia. The consultancy team has skills and
experience in the fields of coral reef ecology, coral reef management,
and information management systems.

David Peters, GAF representative in
Indonesia and Project Manager observes: “The CRITC project is an
important milestone for GAF, now providing technical assistance
services to this geographic area from its new representative office in
Jakarta. The CRITC project underlines the emphasis GAF is now devoting
to environmental consulting in the costal and marine domains.”

About COREMAP

COREMAP
(Coral Reef Rehabilitation and Management Program) began in 1998. It is
a long term program with the overall objective to establish a viable,
operational, and institutionalized coral reef management system in
priority sites in Indonesia. It consists of three phases: Phase I:
Initiation (1998 2004), Phase II: Decentralization and Acceleration
(2004 2009), Phase III: Institutionalization (2010 2015).

COREMAP is now in Phase II, with goals of establishing viable reef
management systems in at least six priority Participating Districts in
order to empower and to support coastal communities to sustainably co
manage the use of coral reefs and associated ecosystem resources. The
second phase expands the number of program sites to build upon the
pilots tested in Phase I and focuses on promoting collaborative
management partnership between communities and local governments.

About GAF

GAF AG is an international company with
leading competence and expertise in applied remote sensing, spatial
information systems and capacity building. GAF AG offers a
comprehensive portfolio of services ranging from supply of geo-data
(e.g. satellite and aerial imagery, digital elevation models), image
processing, thematic mapping, GIS/DBMS applications, software
development, training and environmental consulting. GAF has a proven
track-record in performing technical assistance projects in the
environmental sector and delivering customized spatial-, cadastre and
land information systems. For over two decades, GAF AG´s activities
have been overseen by the CEO, Dr. Rupert Haydn.

To obtain more information, please contact:

GAF AG

Dr. Stefan Saradeth

Tel. +49 (0) 89 12 15 28 0

info@gaf.de

(Credits GAF AG)

The Innsbruck-based company GeoVille recently produced a
true-colour Envisat MERIS mosaic of Europe under a contract with the
European Space Agency. It depicts the member states of the European
Union including ESA‘s 16 current member states and the ESA accession
state Luxembourg.

The mosaic covers approximately 1.6
million square kilometres of European territory at 300-metre resolution
and was made up of around 160 separate MERIS images. The mosaic was
produced using the Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer instrument on
ESA‘s Envisat environmental satellite, working in full resolution mode.
This is an excellent sensor to make the link between higher resolution
data used for hotspot monitoring and coarser resolution data used so
far for global monitoring.

Meris Mosaic Image

Copyright: ESA 2005 Image Processing: GeoVille

The Europe mosaic can be browsed country wise under the link http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEM8RGO3E4E_index_0.html

Kongsberg Spacetec has signed a contract with the Danish
Meteorological Institute for delivery of two ground stations capable of
receiving and processing data from NOAA and METOP satellites (June
2005).

One system will be installed at DMI in Copenhagen, the other at Kangerlussuaq Greenland.

The delivery includes two antennas (L-band), hardware and software for ingest, monitoring & control, and processing.

This is the second MEOS contract Kongsberg
Spacetec has signed with DMI. President Bjørn Kanck (Kongsberg
Spacetec) states that “this is a very important contract because it
includes our latest METOP solution for the coming METOP satellite to be
launched in 2006 and it also shows that our MEOS solution is
appreciated by our customers and that we are the world leader in this
market”.

(Credits Kongsberg Spacetec)

Terrafirma is a pan-european ground motion information service in
support of policies aimed at saving lives, improving safety and
reducing economic loss.

The project has
utilised the archive of ERS SAR scenes held by ESA to produce
Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) motion maps with
interrogatable 12 year histories for each of the measurement points
which has persistently scattered back satellite radar energy throughout
the stack of scenes.

Increasingly ENVISAT
ASAR data will be integrated to continue the data acquisition to the
present, providing the unique ability to map near-vertical ground
motion with sub-centimetric precision. Stage 1 of Terrafirma saw the
successful consolidation of suppliers and users of InSAR ground motion
information products, engaging with around 40 geo- organisations in 25
countries, with two successful international educational workshops.

Stage 2 is now under negotion between ESA and NPA, with a similar core
team, to extend the cover of ground motion hazard monitoring to a
selection of urban areas around EU member states and enhance the focus
on landslide and seismic hazards.

(Credits NPA Group)

Reinhold Lutz (54) succeeds Mr. Dudok as Senior Vice-President of
EADS Astrium’s international Earth Observation, Navigation &
Science business unit. He was previously Senior Vice-President Strategy
& Planning at EADS headquarters in Paris.

From 1989 to 1999, he headed various
business units of EADS’ German predecessor companies Dasa, Dornier and
MBB-Raumfahrt. During his professional career, Dr. Lutz has also been a
visiting lecturer in Communications Engineering at the Technical
University of Munich, and is co-author of the book Space Mission
Analysis and Design. Dr. Lutz is married with two children.

(Credits EADS Space)

Concerning the high importance of borders and border areas,
EUROSENSE wants to provide specific geo-information, with focus on
“cross-border cooperation” and “security”, by means of the project
SABOCO.

With the expansion of the EU and the
consequent increase of the outer border, border cooperation is of top
priority for the EU. Moreover, borders play a fundamental role in
international aid and crisis management. Border areas are often the
places where conflicts take place and where concentrations of refugees
can be found.

In SABOCO, attention goes to the security
control of the outer-border of the new EU against terrorism, illegal
traffic, etc. (civilian application)•but also to the economic and
social development of the border region (border-cooperation), etc.

SABOCO wants to raise customer awareness
by promoting and demonstrating EUROSENSE’s EO-based products and
services for cross border cooperation and security. SABOCO wants to
generate the interest, adoption and acceptance of EO-data to a wide
multi-user market segment, thereby also increasing the demand for
related data and products. The service SABOCO wants to deliver, is in
fact a set of interrelated datasets forming the foundation for a
cross-border geo-database. Good geo-information is fundamental for
prosperous border cooperation, as it plays an essential role in the
preparation and decision process in many border related tasks.

SABOCO is a project under the EOMD-programme of ESA, “Earth Observation Market Development”.

(Credits Eurosense.com)

Concerning the CAP-reform and the accession of several new
EU-countries, SAGACAP wants to generalize and optimize EUROSENSE’s
agricultural control-service to make it applicable to the new market
situation.

SAGACAP wants to generalize EUROSENSE’s
well-developed agricultural control workflow to make it more generic
and widely applicable. With the change of CAP-regulations (Common
Agricultural Policy) and the accession of several new EU countries,
timing is ideal for the creation of a generic service and specific
products. SAGACAP wants to anticipate on this new market situation and
is therefore a typical EO-market generation project.

Main issue of SAGACAP, is to generalize and optimize the agricultural
control workflow, according to the CAP-reform and the new geographic
conditions in accession EU-countries. Besides the control (by remote
sensing) of area and land use also the several new measures of the
cross-compliance have to be taken in account. The goal is to construct
a reliable agricultural control-service as generic as possible, so it
can operate in different geographical areas, taking in account
different environmental conditions, according to different national
interpretations and legislations and with different types of
input-data. The challenge is to develop and examine technical solutions
for the control-service to make this possible.

SAGACAP is a project under the EOMD-programme of ESA, “Earth Observation Market Development”.

(Credits Eurosense.com)

Jun 22, 2005

Regulators are under increasing pressure to
find more effective and efficient approaches to regulation. SciSys
offers a wide ranging, flexible solution.

Today’s regulators are being asked to not only enforce new and changing
directives faster and more cost effectively, but also to provide a
better service to customers and a more transparent and consistent
approach to regulation. At the recent GC2005 show SciSys showed
regulators how we could help streamline processes effectively, ensure
they are applied coherently and unambiguously, and provide real
benefits and advice to customers.

SciSys provides consultancy services to
support regulators in finding more efficient and proactive ways to
regulate; flexible software modules to build in efficiency and take out
costs; and ongoing support and development to future proof the
regulation process.

Improving the process

SciSys is already working with regulators
to provide them with more efficient and effective ways to administer
and deliver licensing, monitoring and compliance checking. For example,
measures such as improved data access or streamlining the
administration of licenses and subsequent checking activities can
release staff to genuinely add value to the process: advising
businesses on which regulations apply to them, educating them on how to
comply; encouraging a sense of corporate social responsibility and so
reducing the enforcement burden.

“Like many UK regulators, the Environment
Agency was actively looking for ways to be more cost effective, while
also meeting rising expectations for high quality services. To do more,
do it better, and do it with a leaner budget, the EA worked with us on
an initiative that used the latest in technology and thinking to
radically change its business processes. As part of our ongoing
framework agreement, our regulation solution continues to be used to
help the EA fulfil further regulatory obligations, and so to ensure its
staff have more time and resources to fully evaluate permit
applications and their implications, and for managers to co-ordinate
work scheduling and resource planning more effectively”.

Our regulation solutions span the
complete regulation process, including Licensing, Monitoring,
Compliance and may be offered collectively or independently, providing
customers with solutions that integrate with existing legacy systems.

For more information about our work in
regulation, please call 01249 466466 and ask for the regulation team.
Or Download a factsheet to find out more.

(Credits Scisys)

Toulouse, 21 July 2005

Spot Image and ImageONE have signed a
commercial partnership agreement giving ImageONE exclusive rights to
distribute FORMOSAT-2 data to the entire Japanese market. The agreement
also grants three minutes per day priority reservation of the
satellite’s resources on the orbit west of Japan.

“The energy and enthusiasm that ImageONE
has shown in the distribution of SPOT products in Japan convinced us
that they are the best partner to promote FORMOSAT-2,” said Hervé
Buchwalter, Chairman & CEO of Spot Image. “The data from this new
satellite will reinforce the success of efforts to promote SPOT 5, for
which we also signed in 2002 an exclusive agreement for the national
security market.”

Japan’s space programmes
reflect its strong interest in satellite-based Earth observation and
are spurring development of thematic applications. Japan has been the
biggest user of SPOT imagery in the Asia-Pacific region for several
years now.

“With its daily 2m imaging capability over
territories surrounding Japan, FORMOSAT-2 will certainly become an
attractive data source for Japanese customers. FORMOSAT-2 will also
serve as a good complementary data source to SPOT-5 for the territories
surrounding Japan,” explained Hiroshi Nashimoto, President of ImageONE.

The FORMOSAT-2 Earth-observation satellite was launched by Taiwan’s
National Space Organization (NSPO), the country’s space agency, in May
2004. It provides black-and-white images at two-metre resolution and
colour images at eight-metre resolution. The NSPO has chosen Spot Image
as exclusive global distributor of FORMOSAT-2 products and services
outside Taiwan and China.

The Spot Image group is headquartered in
Toulouse, France, has five subsidiaries and three offices. It draws on
a global network of ground receiving stations, channel partners and
distributors to provide users with multi-resolution optical and radar
imagery. The density of this network makes it possible to bring
solutions and support to public- and private-sector decision-makers
anywhere in the world.

ImageONE Co. Ltd has
been active in the Japanese Earth-observation market as a supplier of
EO satellite ground receiving stations for over 10 years. Today, the
company distributes EO satellite data, related equipment and software,
and value-added information for decision-making and project support
services. It is the only comprehensive solution provider in the
Japanese EO market.

For further information
Spot Image Global Communications

France: Corporate Communications – Tel: +33 (0)5 62 19 40 10
Anne-Marie.Bernard@spotimage.fr
United States: Clark Nelson –

Tel: +1 (0)703 715 3131
nelson@spot.com

Japan: ImageONE –

Tel: +81 359082800

http://www.spotimage.fr

http://www.imageone.co.jp/

http://www.nspo.org.tw/e60/menu0400.html

(Credits Spot Image)