or that of Gabon’s forests. The station,
built for $9.5-million with French
funding, has direct access to data
from Nasa satellites and the ItalianFrench group Telespazio. At the Nkok
reception station, 20 mainly Gabonese
scientists sift through the latest data.
"It’s like a medical X-ray. You have to
handle and interpret the satellite image
correctly so that it can be intelligible
to the ordinary user," said Ghislain
Moussavou, AGEOS’s scientific
director. His team is developing a new
map of Gabon’s forest cover, which
makes up 88% of the country.
It is mostly primary forest, criss-crossed
by rivers and smaller waterways
and populated by a wealth of fauna
including elephants, buffalos, antelopes
and apes.
The government says it wants
to calibrate Gabon’s economic,
agricultural and mining development
with the need to protect this exceptional
ecosystem.
Since different types of forest harbour
different levels of carbon, careful
planning regarding where to exploit
timber and where to grow palms for
oil, for example, can rein in carbon
emissions, Mr Moussavou said.
Another team is poring over satellite
data on the waters of the Gulf of
Guinea, looking for oil spills and
monitoring large-scale commercial
fishing. Dots on a screen pinpoint the
locations of ships off Gabon’s shores.
The analysts are able to identify
the vessels down to their names,
registration numbers and the flags
they are flying, said Dominique Rozier,
a Telespazio engineer assigned to
AGEOS. The technology is providing
a welcome new tool to crack down
on illegal fishing and aid in the
management of fish stocks.
AGEOS plans to share its data freely
with other countries covered by the
satellite footprint. "The forests of the
Congo basin are a heritage that we
should manage jointly. It makes no
sense to protect the forest in one part
while the vast remaining territory is not
protected," Mr Gahouma said. Talks
are under way with Rwanda and the
Democratic Republic of Congo to
determine how they can gain access to
the satellite images.
Zambia could benefit from this new
development to map the rapidly
disappearing forests of the country due
to charcoal burning and china-driven
logging.
FARMERS GAZETTE
November 2015
57