GAF AG (DE)
The project sets out to use EO and geologic information to detect and monitor artisanal & small-scale mining (ASM) activities in tropical areas. ASM is an important economic factor in developing countries but poses serious environmental, health, and criminal threats to local communities. The associated deforestation is also a considerable factor in regional and global climate change.Public, high-resolution (HR, 10m) and multi-temporal Sentinel-2 satellite imagery allows to detect and monitor indicators of ASM.
The imagery is processed in a “cloud” environment and the resulting indicators are retrieved by a user-friendly internet front-end platform – the ASM alert tool – that demands no IT- or image processing knowledge on side of the user.The geologic information (rock units, tectonic structures, known gold occurrences) are analyzed and reclassified according their potential to bear gold, resulting in “gold potential” map. This gold potential map helps to prioritize EO HR indicators and to decide to acquire additional up-to-date very-high-resolution satellite imagery that may be used as evidence for legal disputes. The project sets out to develop, implement, test and train the ASM alert tool.
The second focus of the project is to maximize the political outreach of the project results. For this purpose GAF is teaming with the Institute for Environmental Security (IES). The project will promote the results to decision makers at the international court in Den Hague, the OECD, the OAS and the World Bank beyond others key stakeholders (e.g. the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Climate Convention, the Convention to Combat Desertification, the World Heritage Convention,the Inter-American Court on Human Rights).
