• mercredi 07 mai 2003 : ESIL, Marseille, France
  
  
  • 14h00 : Unesco and The International Space Agencies established an Open Initiative to use Space Technologies to Monitor World Heritage Sites   [ doc ] - Mario Hernandez
    Chief Information Management and Remote Sensing
    UNESCO World Heritage Centre, 7 Place de Fontenoy 75352 Paris (France)
    E-mail: Ma.Hernandez@unesco.org
    
    Résumé :
    The European Space Agency (ESA) and UNESCO launched an ‘Open Initiative’ in support of the World Heritage Convention in October 2001. Through this initiative, ESA and other International Space Agencies agreed to support the efforts of States Parties of the World Heritage Convention in the monitoring of World Heritage sites using Space Technologies. The main objective is to provide assistance to developing countries in understanding and making use of satellite images for the benefit of World Heritage sites conservation. Capacity building is the main component of this important initiative.Today the Open Initiative is a reality. Various organizations and institutions have joined the initiative and Governments are financing some of the activities. As an initial project, ESA and UNESCO, jointly with the Governments of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, have decided to make an assessment of the World Heritage sites that host gorilla habitat in Eastern and Central Africa. Such an assessment covers the changes occurred during the last 10 years. The presentation will describe the project, objectives and goals, as well as the current results and expected results for 2003.The World Heritage sites selected for this study cover the national parks of Parc National des Virunga (site classified as ‘in danger’ located at the Democratic Republic of Congo) and The Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (Uganda). In order to cover the whole areas of gorilla habitat in this region, the study includes additional World Heritage candidate sites: the Parc National des Volcans (Rwanda), and the Mgahinga Gorilla National Park (Uganda).All of the above-mentioned areas host mountain gorillas, the Gorilla b. beringei living in the vulcanous region, and a small population of eastern lowland gorilla Gorilla b. graueri. During the last years the region has suffered a series of wars and as a consequence a large arrival of refugees. All these actions have become an enormous threat for the area in particular for the survival of the gorillas. Therefore an overall assessment of the vegetation cover over time is required. This is the scope of the UNESCO and ESA defined SOGHA (Surveillance Of Gorilla HAbitat) project.Due to the mountainous nature of the terrain, inaccessibility and to the unstable atmospheric conditions over the area preventing the existence of good optical images, ESA is assisting UNESCO in the creation of Digital Terrain Models that will significantly improve the quality of the derived maps.The World Heritage Convention deals also with important Cultural sites: archeological sites, old cities, etc. In this area the new high resolution available with the new generation of satellites: Landsat 7, Spot 5, Ikonos and Quickbird, provides new tools to assist developing countries in the monitoring of their cultural heritage sites. Examples of these new satellites will be shown.It is clear that all the techniques dealing with digital images constitute an important support tool to understand the complexity of World Heritage sites and its surroundings and to assist therefore in improving the site management plans. New technologies where the World Heritage sites can be ‘virtually’ reconstructed or where the visitors can have ‘virtual tours’ of the site are slowly becoming available in the most developed countries. These techniques can also assist the conservation of World Heritage sites. One of the major goals of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre is to make accessible to the less developed Sates Parties any additional tools that can strengthen the conservation and associated management of the World Heritage sites.While all the technologies described herein are extremely useful, it is difficult to make them available to developing States Parties. Therefore partnerships with institutions/organizations that have the expertise and the associated know-how are required.Overall the work described in this presentation is a good example of the importance of international cooperation to make use of sophisticated space and image technologies to preserve the Heritage of our World. UNESCO has continued with this Open initiative and other International Space Agencies are joining. The whole concept has attracted Governments that are providing financial support to further promote the use of satellite images as a support tool for World Heritage Conservation.