What do conservation practitioners want from remote sensing?

The data collected by earth observation remote sensing is a powerful tool for conservation and in such a rapidly changing field, it is essential that conservationists working with satellite imagery and the experts behind it work together to make the most of the technology and convert the results into action for conservation.

The Shared Challenges Programme ran series of five ‘user discussion groups’ within the CCI partners in early 2010 to identify the actual needs and desires from the users of remote sensing data within conservation organisations. The final workshop in the series in March 2011 brought together conservation practitioners and technical experts from a range of organizations including NASA and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) with those from 11 CCI partners to discuss the latest developments in remote sensing technology how they could be applied to conservation.

Project Aims

This project aims identify the information that conservation practitioners actually need from earth observation remote sensing data, and, importantly, to increase collaboration between conservation community ‘users’ and the technical experts. It will also raise awareness across conservation organisations and researchers of the potential for remote sensing to inform their work.

Key Activities

Five workshops held in early 2010 to identify the needs of people who use of remote sensing data from within the CCI partners. These ‘user needs’ workshops brought together 75 people and were held in:

RSPB (18th January)
UNEP-WCMC (1st February)
BTO (1st February)
BirdLife International (11th February)
FFI (15th February)

On the 31st March 2011, the final workshop in the series brought together conservation practitioners and technical experts from a range of organizations including NASA and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) with those from 11 CCI partners to discuss new developments in remote sensing techniques and how these could be applied to conservation.

Conservation Impact

This work raised the profile of CCI organisations involvement in remote sensing for conservation, strengthened existing collaborations and built new partnerships between remote sensing ‘users’ and ‘providers’, as well as identifying the need for both sides to communicate more. It helped raise awareness across CCI of the value of remote sensing to conservation; and should ultimately increase the contribution that remote sensing makes to the work that CCI does and help to fully realise its potential for conservation. It was agreed that continuing two-way discussions like this is essential, and a multi author comment paper is being drafted which will both strengthen existing collaborations and build new partnerships.

Outputs

CCI report: ‘What do conservationists want from remote sensing’ bringing together the main conclusions from the five user needs workshops was circulated to CCI partners.