Following the massive earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on 11 March, satellite imagery has been vital in providing a clear picture of the extent of devastation to aid the relief effort now underway.
In response to this event, which turned out to be the biggest earthquake Japan has suffered in living memory, the International Charter 'Space and Major Disasters' was triggered by the Cabinet Office of Japan the same day the earthquake struck.
As a result, satellite images from several space agencies and operators from around the world are being used to map and assess the stricken areas.
Founded 10 years ago, the International Charter is a unique mechanism to ensure that timely satellite images are made freely available to authorities and aid workers coping with the aftermath of a disaster.

By combining Earth observation data from different space agencies, the Charter allows resources and expertise from around the world to be coordinated for rapid response to major disasters.

The value of the initiative lies in the way it has been set up to gather and coordinate a range of different satellite data, turn them into usable products and provide a single access point to the products 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and at no cost to the user.
Demonstrating the incredible power that Earth can unleash, the devastation caused by the 8.9-magnitude quake has left the world stunned.
Japan's northwestern coastline is thought to have shifted by as much as 4 m to the east and whole towns have been washed away by the tsunami, completely changing the landscape.
Satellite maps are providing essential information for search and rescue teams on the ground and for damage assessment. Before-and-after images show how the land has changed and where buildings and roads once stood.

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/Mapping_Japan_s_changed_landscape_from_space

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Sulphur dioxide plume over Mediterranean


This new image from ESA's Envisat satellite shows the plume of smoke billowing into the atmosphere from Mount Etna, Sicily, Italy, on 11 January.

Volcanic activity gradually increased the following day, peaking in the evening of 12 January – sending flames and ash hundreds of metres into the air.


The image on the right was acquired by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder on NASA's EOS-AQUA satellite. It shows the plume of sulphur dioxide being carried over the Mediterranean Sea.
The data were processed by the Norwegian Institute for Air Research within the framework of ESA's Data User Element and can be used to warn aviation companies on the hazardous plume.

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/Mount_Etna_bursts_into_life_new_image

New policy to address indigenous communities in agency's work

FAO is defining a new basis for cooperation and dialogue with the world's indigenous populations following the adoption of a new policy designed to ensure that they are considered in all relevant aspects of the agency's work.
Indigenous and tribal peoples comprise around five per cent of the world's population but make up about 15 per cent of the extremely poor.
The "FAO Policy on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples" (http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/newsroom/docs/FAO_policy.pdf) aims to provide guidance to the agency's various technical units and encourage staff in headquarters and in the regions to engage more systematically and responsibly with indigenous peoples and their organizations.

This will help facilitate the exchange of knowledge and ideas ranging from land tenure issues, sustainable management of natural resources to conservation of traditional knowledge and diversity of traditional food systems for the benefit of rural communities and indigenous peoples.

"With the preparation of this policy paper, FAO aspires to play an important role in the international community's efforts to ensure a better life for indigenous peoples and rural populations" said FAO Director General Jacques Diouf in the preface to the report. "The fight against hunger cannot be won without them."

Environmental harmony              

Many indigenous peoples live in symbiosis with the environment and are highly dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods. They also often have specialized knowledge about nature's resources and diversity, both on land and water.
"However, efforts to achieve food security and sustainable development are being compromised by continuing environmental degradation and the erosion of traditional skills" the FAO policy notes.
In addition, many of the lands inhabited by indigenous peoples are highly vulnerable to climate change. As a result, the inhabitants of these areas have advanced knowledge and coping strategies that may prove useful in broader adaptation to future climate scenarios.

The policy was prepared in close consultation with indigenous representatives, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and other UN agencies, as well as numerous individual experts. The content of the policy is based on international legal instruments such as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted in 2007.

‘Is there a doctor on the plane?’ Piping this request over aircraft speakers is the traditional response to a potential onboard medical emergency. But now the availability of expert medical advice can be guaranteed every time.
Etihad Airways, national carrier of the United Arab Emirates, is the latest airline to install the ESA-derived Tempus IC telemedicine system on its long-haul flights.
ESA supported the development of the technology in collaboration with the UK manufacturer RDT. Already in service with numerous airlines, the briefcase-sized Tempus IC puts non-medical cabin crew in contact with ground-based experts during in-flight medical emergencies.
Key information about the passenger’s health can be quickly transmitted via satellite to a dedicated response centre.

The same vital signs which are measured routinely in a hospital emergency room, including blood pressure and sugar levels, temperature and heart rate, are captured to a clinical level of quality.
At the same time, the crew can also talk with the medical specialists and send them still and moving pictures of the situation.
Imagine a long-haul flight passenger complaining of acute shoulder pain. He may just have strained his muscles lifting too much luggage – or he could be experiencing a heart attack.
The Tempus IC system can transmit the passenger’s electrocardiographic readings to the medical team, allowing them to rule out heart problems and preventing an emergency diversion costing many thousands of euros.


http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Telecommunications_Integrated_Applications/ESA_emergency_telemedicine_system_soars_to_commercial_success

UNESCO has supported a one-week workshop on Media Law & Ethics in Teaching, Research and Practice, jointely hosted by the Chinese Association of Global Communication (CAGC), the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy at Oxford University (PCMLP), the Department of Journalism and Communication at Beijing Foreign Studies University and the School of Journalism and Communication of Tsinghua University. The workshop is taking place from August 23 to 28, 2010 at Tsinghua University, in Beijing.
The workshop brought together a total of 80 Chinese journalists, journalism educators and students from a large number of universities from different regions of Mainland China.

The workshop's lectures and discussions revolve around principles of media ethics: UNESCO’s work in the fields of freedom of expression and freedom of the press; media ethics in practice in both China and internationally; teaching media ethics - curriculum, textbooks and methods; researching media ethics; media law & ethics in the real world and in the classroom; and the impact on media ethics by Internet media and social communication.
Mogens Schmidt, Deputy Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information at UNESCO, opened the Summer School expressing UNESCO's gratitude to Tsinghua University for organizing it. He also delivered a two-hour keynote speech on Principles of Media Ethics. He presented the position of UNESCO with regards to media ethics and law by introducing the Article 19 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights and stressing the importance freedom of expression for cultivating a good journalism.

Mogens Schmidt also met with journalism educators and students at Peking University to discuss issues related to ethical and professional standards and their relationship with media law and freedom of expression. Peking University has been in charge of the translation of the UNESCO reader on Freedom of information: a comparative legal survey, which will be launched officially in China later this year.

Since the 1990s, with the rapid development of media industry and the growing media commercialization and the rise of the new media, Chinese journalism is challenged by the flooding of fake news, misleading advertisements, paid journalism, various sorts of media corruption, and etc. To tackle these challenges, there is a need for fundamental measures including training practising journalists and educating future journalists, to which this training workshop would greatly contribute.


http://whc.unesco.org

Will help countries to detect fire hotspots in real time



FAO today has launched a new online portal on fire information and real time monitoring to help countries to control fire effectively and protect property and natural resources. The new Global Fire Information Management System (GFIMS) detects fire hotspots from satellites operated by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Developed in collaboration with the University of Maryland, GFIMS has an online mapping interface for displaying fire hotspots in "near real" time meaning that there is a lag of approximately 2.5 hours between satellite overpass and the data being available. The new system also allows users to receive email alerts on specific areas of interest, enabling subscribers to react quickly.

"The GFIMS has been launched at a time when the incidence of megafires tends to increase," said Pieter van Lierop, FAO Forestry Officer, who is responsible for the agency's activities in fire management.
"The control of these fires has become an issue of high importance, not only because of the increasing number of casualties and the huge amounts of area burned but also because of the relations with issues of global interest, like climate change."In Russia alone this year due to the unprecedented heat wave with temperatures soaring to up to 40ºC and winds of up to 20 metres per second the total area burned has reached more than 14 million hectares, according to the data provided by the Sukachev Institute for Forests, based in Krasnoyarsk. Forest fires in Russia have already killed more than 50 people this summer.

Globally, vegetation fires affect an estimated 350 million ha of land each year- about half or more of this area is burnt in Africa. In the Mediterranean, between 700 000 and one million hectares are damaged by vegetation fires every year.

Easy to use
Until recently, natural resource managers have faced considerable challenges in obtaining timely satellite-derived information on vegetation fires.

"The information was very fragmented because it was gathered from various sources making it unsuitable for precise analysis and identifying trends," - said John Latham, FAO Senior Environment Officer in the Natural Resources Management and Environment Department. - "GFIMS is an integrated fire information system which delivers the essential data to its users while the fires are still burning."

GFIMS allows users to download fire information in minimal file sizes and in easy-to-use formats, including text files, ESRI shapefiles, Web Map Services, Google Earth/KML files, and a plug-in for NASA World Wind.
"GFIMS has also provoked strong research interest," added Latham. "Linking the system to land cover shows us what is burning. GFIMS now provides analysis on trends of prevalence of fire by year and month, and will include information on the size of burnt area by land cover type in the future. It will result in improving analytical data and timely response."
The system could be used by forest managers and fire fighters, as well as agencies involved in agricultural and natural resources monitoring. The subscription is free of charge. The system only requires a functioning email address. Initially GFIMS has been launched in three languages - English, French and Spanish. The monitoring system is hosted at the FAO's Natural Resources Management and Environment Department.


http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/44613/icode/

One of the European Space Agency experiments involves the collection of air samples to measure the quality of air in a confined space such as the Mars500 modules. Romain Charles demonstrates the collection procedure and describes the scope of this experiment.

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars500/SEMJ2Y4OJCG_0.html

The second, updated and revised, edition of Toby Mendel’s Freedom of Information: A Comparative Legal Survey has been translated into Arabic and is now available both in print and online versions.

The publication analyses the notion of the right to information, surveys international standards and trends, outlines the key features of a right to information regime and presents a comparative legal analysis covering 14 different countries.

“There has been a veritable revolution in recent years in terms of the right to information, commonly understood as the right to access information held by public bodies. Whereas in 1990 only 13 countries had adopted national right to information laws, upwards of 70 such laws have now been adopted globally, and they are under active consideration in another 20-30 countries,” states the author. His overview of best practice standards and review of laws and policies has become a point of reference for governments, civil society actors, development practitioners, academics and media involved in efforts to further the right to information around the world.

The publication is also available in its original English version, as well as in Chinese, French, Nepalese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish for free download in PDF format: click here.

http://whc.unesco.org

FAO publishes new version of handbook on wildland fire management



Fighting wildfires requires the participation of local communities, since most fires stem from human activities, says a new version of FAO's "Wildland Fire Management Handbook for Trainers," co-published today by the UN agency and the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
"When local communities benefit from protecting their natural resources they are more likely to be mobilized to prevent fires," said Pieter van Lierop, FAO Forestry Officer. Where people have a direct interest in protecting their natural resources, the number and size of unplanned wildfires started by people are likely to drop significantly.

The handbook highlights that the risk, frequency, intensity and impacts of wildfires can be reduced through more integrated approaches to fire management, including fire detection and suppression but also monitoring, early warning, prevention and preparedness. 

"There should be the right balance between activities involving suppressing fires and investing in costly forest-fire equipment on one hand, and establishing effective prevention and awareness-raising among local communities on the other," van Lierop said.

Scale and causes of wildfires

Globally, more than 350 million hectares (ha) are estimated to be affected by vegetation fires eah year — about half or more of this area is burnt in Africa.
An estimated 150 to 250 million ha of tropical forests are affected by wildfire annually.
Between 700 thousand and 1 million ha in the Mediterranean area suffer from vegetation fires every year.
Ninety to 95 percent of all such fires have a human cause.

The expansion of agriculture and other forms of land conversion in developing countries, negligence, the increased use of wildlands for recreation, such as picnics and barbecues, and tourism in both developed and developing countries are among the reasons for the increasing incidence and impacts of wildland fires. Many fires are intentionally set to clear land for agriculture, and often burn much larger areas than was originally intended.

However, simply prohibiting burning is not a practical solution. "People will light fires anyway, even if it is legally banned, in order to clear land or to dispose of rubbish," van Lierop said. "So it is more beneficial to train local communities in fire management and to develop alternative less harmful solutions with them. Burning land at the end of winter, for example, will lower the risk of bigger devastating fires."

Fire: a necessary evil
Fire can be very destructive and at the same time be a very useful land management tool if carefully timed and used. Fire and ecosystems have been linked in many ways for millennia, and that must be recognized for any wildland fire management to be effective, according to FAO. It is important that planned burning in ecosystems takes place to maintain biodiversity, ensure regeneration, and forage production.

For instance, it is known that in Southern Africa, controlled burning of savanna provides edible forage for animals compared to unburnt areas and reduces the fire risk by reducing the accumulation of dry and inedible older grasses. In grassland ecosystems, fire is the primary mode of decomposition, crucial for returning nitrites to the soil and allowing the grasslands to sustain their high productivity.

Successful fire management requires training of local communities to improve their knowledge of fire impacts on food security and rural livelihoods. Also, land-use authorities and managers around the world need to be educated in ecological fire management. Creating special forest fire control units in each country is another important step to monitor and prevent disastrous forest fires.

In Thailand, massive education and training programmes involving foresters and the general public have resulted in a reduction of indiscriminate burning by 30 percent, the publication mentions. "Developing countries should look into such positive practices and put more efforts into community based fire management education and prevention of fires," added van Lierop.


http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/41230/icode/

FAO publishes key findings of global forest resources assessment


World deforestation, mainly the conversion of tropical forests to agricultural land, has decreased over the past ten years but continues at an alarmingly high rate in many countries, FAO announced today.
Globally, around 13 million hectares of forests were converted to other uses or lost through natural causes each year between 2000 and 2010 as compared to around 16 million hectares per year during the 1990s, according to key findings of FAO's most comprehensive forest review to date The Global Forest Resources Assessment 2010. The study covers 233 countries and areas.
Brazil and Indonesia, which had the highest loss of forests in the 1990s, have significantly reduced their deforestation rates. In addition, ambitious tree planting programmes in countries such as China, India, the United States and Viet Nam - combined with natural expansion of forests in some regions - have added more than seven million hectares of new forests annually. As a result the net loss of forest area was reduced to 5.2 million hectares per year between 2000 and 2010, down from 8.3 million hectares annually in the 1990s.

The world's total forest area is just over four billion hectares or 31 percent of the total land area. The net annual loss of forests (when the sum of all gains in forest area is smaller than all losses) in 2000-2010 is equivalent to an area about the size of Costa Rica. 


Biggest losses in South America, Africa
South America and Africa had the highest net annual loss of forests in 2000-2010, with four and 3.4 million hectares respectively. Oceania also registered a net loss, due partly to severe drought in Australia since 2000. 

Asia, on the other hand, registered a net gain of some 2.2 million hectares annually in the last decade, mainly because of large-scale afforestation programmes in China, India and Viet Nam, which have expanded their forest area by a total of close to four million hectares annually in the last five years. However, conversion of forested lands to other uses continued at high rates in many countries. 

In North and Central America, the forest area remained fairly stable, while in Europe it continued to expand, although at a slower rate than previously.

"For the first time, we are able to show that the rate of deforestation has decreased globally as a result of concerted efforts taken both at local and international level," said Eduardo Rojas, Assistant Director-General of FAO's Forestry Department.

"Not only have countries improved their forest policies and legislation, they have also allocated forests for use by local communities and indigenous peoples and for the conservation of biological diversity and other environmental functions. This is a very welcoming message in 2010 - the International Year of Biodiversity.
"However, the rate of deforestation is still very high in many countries and the area of primary forest - forests undisturbed by human activity - continues to decrease, so countries must further strengthen their efforts to better conserve and manage them", he added.


Forests and climate change


Forests play an important part in climate change mitigation. Forests store a vast amount of carbon. When a forest is cut down and converted to another use, carbon is released back into the atmosphere.
"A lower deforestation rate and the establishment of new forests have helped bring down the high level of carbon emissions from forests caused by deforestation and forest degradation", said Mette Løyche Wilkie, the Coordinator of the Assessment.
"But we need to look forward because the large tree planting programmes in China, India and Viet Nam, accounting for most of the recent gains in forest area, are scheduled to end by 2020," she added. "That means we have a short window of opportunity to put in place effective and permanent measures to significantly reduce the current rates of deforestation and forest degradation. Without such interventions we risk a sudden return to the high rates of net forest loss and of carbon emissions from forests, which we had in the 1990s," she said.


FAO's Global Forest Resources Assessments are published every five years. More than 900 specialists from 178 countries were involved in the Global Forest Resources Assessment 2010. The full report of this Assessment will be released in October 2010.


Key findings


Other key findings in the report included:
•Brazil lost an average of 2.6 million hectares of forest annually in the last ten years as compared with 2.9 million hectares per year in the 1990s while Indonesia's figures were respectively 0.5 and 1.9 million hectares per year.
•Primary forests account for 36 percent of total forest area but have decreased by more than 40 million ha since 2000. This is largely due to reclassification of primary forest to "other naturally regenerated forests" because of selective logging or other human interventions.
•The area of forest in national parks, wilderness areas and other legally protected areas has increased by more than 94 million hectares since 1990 and it now equals 13 percent of the total forest area.
•Forests are among the world's chief carbon sinks. They store some 289 gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon in trees and vegetation. The carbon stored in forest biomass, deadwood, litter and soil together is more than all the carbon in the atmosphere. Globally, carbon stocks in forest biomass decreased by an estimated 0.5 Gt a year in 2000-2010, mainly due to a reduction in total forest area.
•Fires, pests and diseases are causing increased damage to forests in some countries. On average, one percent of all forests was reported to be significantly affected each year by forest fires. Outbreaks of forest insects damage some 35 million hectares of forest annually. Extreme weather events such as storms, blizzards and earthquakes also took a heavy toll in the past decade.
•Seventy-six countries have issued or updated their forest policies since 2000 and 69 countries - primarily in Europe and Africa - have enacted or amended their forest laws since 2005.
•Data collection for the Global Forest Resources Assessment is becoming more comprehensive and precise. New data and additional information on afforestation and on natural expansion of forests for the past 20 years has made it possible to estimate rates of deforestation and loss from natural causes more accurately. The new global estimate for 1990 to 2000 (close to 16 million ha per year) is higher than previously estimated (13 million ha), because it now also includes deforestation within countries that have had an overall net gain in forest area.
•A remote-sensing survey of forests, led by FAO, sampling some 13 500 sites over a period of 15 years, will provide even more accurate data on global and regional rates of deforestation by the end of 2011.



http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/40893/icode/