UK Spy Satellite to Watch for Ilegal Logging in Africa

UK Spy Satellite to Watch for Ilegal Logging in Africa

Via independent.co.uk -

A spy satellite is to be trained on the vast rainforests of central Africa as part of a British project designed to protect them from illegal logging under plans to be unveiled today.

The £1m high-resolution camera will beam images of the Congo Basin Rainforest to a new ground station to allow governments, NGOs and local communities to prevent the rainforests being lost.

The equipment, which can photograph objects as small as 10 metres across, will hover 650km (400 miles) above the rainforest to track illegal logging operations, as well as monitor pollution levels and help monitor agriculture. A £1.5m satellite ground station will also be built in the region as part of an £8m package of measures to be announced today to prevent dangerous deforestation in the region.

British ministers hope the satellite camera, likely to be launched in two years' time, will also provide images for a £1.8m mapping project designed to help the 51 million inhabitants of the rainforest to establish their land rights and prevent loggers seizing territory.

The new initiative will be unveiled at the launch of a global fund to back projects to preserve the rainforest, the world's second-largest tropical forest.

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I bet China doesn't like the sound of this....