How harnessing the power of space technology can combat wildlife crime, improve our understanding of climate change and tackle the loss of the world’s biodiversity
Insects hooked up to satellites in outer space, radars that can help catch poachers and high-tech cameras orbiting the Earth that can detect the health of crops. If all this technology sounds more like the stuff of science fiction, then that’s because, until recently, it was.
But major leaps in the development of space technology are rapidly turning science fiction into reality with huge implications for the protection of wildlife, the fight against wildlife crime and the troubling loss of the world’s biodiversity.
“There are many types of satellites flying in space,” said Werner Balogh, a programme officer at The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA). “But how are they being used, is there more that can be done? Can we find joint mechanisms to share this data? It’s an exciting field and there’s still lots that needs to be explored.”
A number of recent advances in space technology deserve particular attention, according to experts from UNOOSA, which will hold a conference in Nairobi next week that looks at how space technology can be used to manage wildlife and protect biodiversity.
One ground-breaking project, known as the ICARUS Initiative, has developed sensors that weigh between one to five grams and can be attached to small animals, including birds, bats and possibly even large insects like butterflies. Next year, hardware will be installed on the Russian module of the International Space Station that will allow scientists to monitor animals that have been tagged with these tiny sensors as they move between continents, offering new insights into their life, behaviour, ecological function and death.
The people behind ICARUS believe these mini solar-powered sensors will have a profound impact on our understanding of how disease spreads, our knowledge of climate change and our ability to predict natural disasters.
By 2020, it is hoped these sensors will be small enough to fit onto butterflies and locusts. It may even be possible to use these micro-sensors to tinker with a locust’s nerves, controlling a swarm’s flight path in order to divert it away from precious crops. Small birds might also be similarly controlled to help them escape death at the hands of farmers whose crops they destroy.
Space technology can also help other animals avoid death. Experts says that sensors monitored by satellites in space can play a major role in combatting the illegal trade in wildlife, which is one of the largest criminal enterprises in the world with an estimated annual value of $7-23 billion, according to a recent report released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
Poaching is big business in Africa, where elephants and rhinos are being slaughtered in their thousands for their ivory and horns. When a poacher moves in for the kill, these animals will often behave unusually. Animal sensors are now so advanced that they can detect this unusual behaviour, sending out an alert to wildlife rangers who can then swoop on the criminals.
“This type of technology is not as widely used as it perhaps could be,” said Balogh.
Advancements in high resolution space-based radars also present poachers with another problem. These radars are powerful enough to detect vehicles and other equipment used by poachers as they move into national parks to hunt animals. Unlike other optical Earth Observation satellites, these radar satellites can penetrate clouds and dense forest canopies, making it harder for poachers to operate undetected. They also work at night, stripping poachers who often work under cover of darkness of a major tactical advantage over anti-poaching units. Deploying constellations of these radar satellites may also be able to relay satellite images in near-real time.
Infrared sensors attached to drones controlled via GPS could also be used to detect heat from campfires or from warm bodies hiding in the bush, giving anti-poaching units the edge over criminals.
“There are now cheap drones with batteries that can allow them to fly for hours,” said Balogh. “You could make a drone follow an animal, a sort of automated guard. You can fix it with a GoPro camera and attach the drone to a herd of elephant for example, to monitor that herd. Is this useful, is it practical? This is what we want to explore at the conference.”
Satellites armed with synthetic-aperture radar also mean that storm clouds, which often hide crimes at sea, no longer present such a problem for law enforcement agencies trying to combat illegal fishing. Additionally, if a ship goes “dark” by switching off its transponder or moves in a way that indicates it is fishing in a marine sanctuary, then sophisticated software can trigger an alert to police, enabling them to stop the vessel.
“There are now satellites that can capture 90 second videos,” said Lorant Czaran, a programme officer at UNOOSA. “With more of these satellites you could start taking videos from space. You can look at vehicles moving so this type of technology no longer exists in the realm of science fiction or Hollywood. You can now have real time monitoring of things that should not be where they are and then you can deploy forces to counter them.”
But these satellites also have other interesting applications. At the end of last year, a particularly strong El Nino combined with land degradation from palm oil plantations and other agribusiness to create what many have called the worst environmental crisis of the 21st Century. Forest fires tore through Indonesia, with the haze from the fires engulfing neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore and reaching as far as southern Thailand.
During the fires, NASA released images of the fires taken from space. UNEP overlaid these maps with existing maps of Orangutan habitats, providing wildlife rangers and conservationists with vital information needed to launch efforts to rescue the endangered animals.
This work sparked the birth of the Global Peatlands Initiative. Led by UNEP, this initiative plans to map the world’s peatlands using radar satellites. Peatlands cover three to five per cent of the world’s land surface but, shockingly, in an age of space and deep sea exploration, these areas have yet to be fully mapped or understood.
Peatland traps vast amounts of carbon in its rich soil – roughly 30 per cent of all the carbon stored in soil. When the forest fires broke out in Indonesia, the carbon released on some days was greater than the average daily emissions in the USA. They also caused an estimated $16.1 billion in overall economic damage, affected 43 million people, hospitalized 550,000 people and killed 24 others.
“We don’t know how much carbon is in these peatlands,” said Jaime Webbe, UNEP’s peat expert. “That means we don’t know the full extent of what will happen if we enact irreversible changes and we can’t effectively protect peatlands if we don’t know what’s out there and can’t capture their value.”
Increasingly sophisticated satellites can also help monitor the world’s biodiversity, the extent of illegal logging, the rate of deforestation and even soil moisture with ever greater precision. The launch of hyperspectral satellites in growing constellations will mean that companies will soon be able to look at any spot on Earth twice a day, assessing everything from the health of crops in remote locations to the availability of water.
But it’s not as simple as pointing a satellite at an area. In Brazil, illegal loggers who cut down vast swathes of forests often disguised their crimes by using bulldozers to spray the freshly cleared forest floor with green paint. This masked the crime from satellites, which were unable to pick up the difference between the green paint and the forest canopy. Increasing the number of wavelengths picked up by the satellites overcame this problem.
Experts say that, despite the advances in space technology, it is vital that those monitoring the satellites have access to the latest science and knowledge.
“If you don’t have the park ranger who knows what it looks like when people are harvesting wood illegally then you can’t use satellite data effectively,” said Webbe. “You need to be able to combine people on the ground with people monitoring the data and doing the mapping otherwise you are throwing darts blindfolded.”
To improve this, UNEP is also working with the Global Forest Watch project in Madagascar and Georgia to look at how data from satellites on forest degradation and reforestation can be used more effectively by countries around the world.
“There’s a lot to explore,” said Czaran. “There are gaps in capacity and in countries’ ability to use the data from satellites. People don’t know about it or they don’t know how to use the data. Internet connectivity is still a problem in many parts of the world. It can also cost a lot because often people go through intermediaries that charge double. A lot of this is about awareness raising.”
The UNOOSA conference, which will be held in Nairobi on June 27-30 at the headquarters of UNEP, will explore many of these state of the art technologies.
Experts from the likes of INTERPOL, the European Space Agency and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime will meet with government representatives, conservation NGOs and firms like Airbus to discuss whether space technology could be better harnessed to combat environmental crime, improve biodiversity monitoring and protect wildlife.
Among the many topics that will be discussed at the conference are: the use of DNA indexing to track the illegal trade in rhino horn; the use of Earth Observation to support beekeeping; and the monitoring of wildlife habitats from space.
This initiative is part of UNOOSA’s Programme on Space Applications, which supports space capacity-building by Member States. The Programme recently included biodiversity monitoring and protection as one of its new thematic priorities, at the request of several Member States. The results of this conference will feed into preparations for UNISPACE+50, which will mark in 2018 the 50th anniversary of the first UN Conference on the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.
To find out more about the conference, please contact UNEP media officer Michal Szymanski on michal.szymanski@unep.org or +254 20 762 3326
