ENVIRONMENT:
Central America and Caribbean Under Satellite's Eye

Jorge Alberto Grochembake*


GUATEMALA CITY,  (Tierramérica) - Central America has been monitoring its natural resources from outer space since the 1990s, through a project in conjunction with NASA. Now the aim is to incorporate 15 Caribbean countries into the initiative.

Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama already have their first detailed satellite images to detect environmental destruction or ecologically sensitive areas, helping them make decisions, for example, about granting mining or oil drilling rights.

Now the challenge is to expand the project from seven to 21 countries, incorporating 15 Caribbean nations, Mario Dary, head of the Central American Commission for Environment and Development (CCAD) and Guatemala's environment minister, told Tierramérica.

”Natural resources know no borders, and to interpret the phenomena that affect Central America, from the perspective of preventing natural disasters, it's important to have a broad and complete regional view,” he said.

In December 1998, the CCAD signed an agreement with the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, to obtain satellite images of Central American territory -- free of charge.

The five-year agreement was extended for another five and is financed by the World Bank and by the U.S. Agency for International Development, with the participating governments contributing a portion as well.

The initial aim was to protect the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, which covers 589 protected areas, 14 biospheres, eight UNESCO ”heritage of humanity” sites and 45 million inhabitants over 760,000 square km, extending from southern Mexico to Panama.

The project also provides information to help confront and curb damages caused by earthquakes, hurricanes, drought or volcanic eruptions.

The programme's computers allow experts to ”navigate” over the region, based on the systems for Mesoamerican environmental information and regional monitoring.

The petition to expand the project to the Caribbean was made by Dary and by Jorge Cabrera, World Bank environmental consultant to the CCAD, during a visit to Japan last month.

”The initiative was presented and now we are working with the World Bank so that its Caribbean division can help finance the expansion,” said Cabrera.

Meanwhile, the Central Americans are looking to flesh out information about their own resources so that they can be seen on the computer screens, superimposed over the NASA satellite images, he said.

The environmental consultant guided Tierramérica on a virtual tour of Central America using his computer, making a stop at Guatemala's Tikal National Park, which holds important Maya ruins, and is set in the department of El Petén, 550 km north of the capital.

The satellite images clearly show the ruins and the hotels in the park, the visitor centre and its museum, restaurants, roads and even ”a bald spot”, an area cleared of trees that neighbours the park ”but can't be seen from the highway,” Cabrera said.

Digital technology allowed the expert to determine that the deforested area is 500 square metres and is just half a kilometre from the Maya ruins.

Cabrera explained that NASA provides raw data, and the Central American experts have added four of the planned 18 ”layers” of detail from the regional atlas, put together from information from the seven governments, uploaded in Panama, where the programme is based.

”The protected areas, political boundaries, highways and rivers are already marked,” while some of the data yet to be added includes ports, airports, watersheds and bodies of water, he said.

So far, the information is only available on digital videodiscs, DVD, but, said Cabrera, ”We hope to have it on the Internet soon for public and private use.”

”With an integrated view of the territory,” it is hoped that appropriate policy decisions can be made, such as banning industry in tourist areas and keeping industry in certain zones, said the consultant.

But environmental activist Magalí Rey Sosa, director of the MadreSelva Collective, said in a Tierramérica interview that the benefits of the programme ”will depend on whose hands the technology is placed.”

”If the authorities know how to use it, it could help maintain a certain amount of control over territory in a region where there is no money and no personnel to take care of our resources,” she said.

(* Jorge Alberto Grochembake is a Tierramérica contributor. Originally published May 22 by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.)