NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Satellites provide a bird's eye view of planet Earth, and the space-based vantage can be extremely useful to people interested in viewing out-of-the-way places. Conservationists, for example, must monitor far-flung areas in need of protection. Wars, poverty, remoteness, lack of government involvement, and uncertainty over the best places and ways to focus limited resources can all hinder conservation efforts. Now, NASA satellite imagery is giving scientists and conservationists some of the tools they need to get valuable information on land cover and land use changes in wild areas.

Image left: Picture of a Juvenile Mountain Gorilla. Credit: E. De Merode

NASA satellite imagery helps scientists better understand land changes in the Virunga Conservation Area which covers the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Mgahinga Gorilla National Park in Uganda and the Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda. In Swahili, the word virunga means volcano. The Virunga Conservation Area offers habitat to 380 of the world's 700 remaining mountain gorillas. The other 320 gorillas reside in the nearby Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda.

In a single week in June of 2004, farmers created pasture for their cattle by clearing 15 square kilometers (5.8 square miles), or 6 percent, of the 264-square kilometers (102 square miles) of mountain gorilla habitat in the southern "Mikeno" sector of Virunga National Park. Because mountain gorilla numbers had increased by close to 56 individuals over the last 10 years, the recent loss of land was a considerable step backward.


Image above: This map shows the location of the Virunga Conservation area within Africa, and highlights an area in the "Mikeno" sector of the park where rapid deforestation occurred in June 2004. Credit: Nadine Laporte/ Tiffany Lin

In a race against time for the mountain gorillas and many other species indigenous to these natural areas, scientists at the Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) in Woods Hole, MA, are working with NASA and conservationists in the Virunga National Park to stave off further destruction of the lands.

Image right:This aerial photo taken in April 2004 shows the park border in the Mikeno sector. The forest lies on the left, with agricultural lands on the right. Credit: Steve Gulick

"Remote sensing is the only tool that we have to efficiently monitor these remote parks," says Nadine Laporte, head of the Africa Program at WHRC. "Satellite imagery allows park managers to update park property boundaries, map forest habitat, and look at encroachment of the park by comparing images from two different dates."

Laporte is working with conservation groups to create a monitoring system that combines NASA satellite imagery with aerial flight and field surveys, all of which can be relayed to and coordinated with local park rangers on the ground. Currently, park workers are building a three-foot wall along key park borders to keep out cattle and people seeking to alter the land.

Image left: This photo from June 6, 2004, shows deforestation within the national park boundary on the Congo-Rwandan border. Greener cultivated areas on the right of the picture are outside the National Park, in Rwanda; brown areas with burning vegetation are the areas within Virunga National Park in Congo. Credit: Merode et al., 2004.

NASA now provides free Landsat images, which researchers and rangers are using as base maps for field surveys. "We still have to integrate remote sensing with traditional surveys on the ground," said Laporte. "They really complement each other. The rate of change is so rapid that we need satellite imagery in a timely fashion to address the problems in the area. Aerial imagery is too expensive."

Since gorilla habitat crosses three different countries, satellite imagery provides data and perspectives that are not bound by political borders. The satellite images can create a convenient method for exchanging information among the three parks that make up the Virunga Conservation Area.

Image right: This map shows the Virunga Conservation Area, which contains the Virunga National Park (Parc National des Virunga) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Mgahinga Gorilla National Park in Uganda and the Volcanoes National Park (Parc National des Volcans) in Rwanda. The Mikeno sector can be seen in the southern part of Virunga National Park. Credit: Nadine Laporte

Along with mapping and monitoring changes in forest cover, a time-sensitive series of images can allow researchers to estimate rates and patterns of deforestation in and around protected areas. These patterns are also studied in relation to trends in human migration.

The Africa Program at the Woods Hole Research Center is funded though NASA's Land Cover Land Use Change program, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Wildlife Conservation Society.

For more information about the Africa Program at the Woods Hole Research Center, please see:
Africa Program - Woods Hole

For a more detailed version of this story, please see:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/earthandsun/gorillas.html

High Resolution Images:

+ Image 1 - Gorilla
+ Image 2 - Map
+ Image 3 - National Park Border
+ Image 4 - Deforestation

Krishna Ramanujan
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center