First, I would like to thank the Government of the People’s Republic of China for inviting me and for successfully organising the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Plenary Session and Ministerial Summit.
South Africa is a founding member of GEO, and has been involved as a co-chair since its inception.GEO’s achievements are a source of pride, as they have defied the odds in many ways, but what stands out for me is the short time it has taken us to get to where we are today, given that we are a voluntary organisation whose operations are maintained by voluntary contributions. The extent to which members and participating organisations have contributed their time, expertise, datasets, and earth observation systems proves that a collective effort can indeed lead us to achieve more than we can as individual states or organisations.
The first Earth Observation Summit, hosted by the United States of America in 2003, registered just over 30 members and no more than 20 participating organisations.These pioneers of GEO committed to a future where national, regional and global earth observation systems could operate in a coordinated manner in order to support effective stewardship of the Earth. Today, GEO membership has grown to 86 members and 61 participating organisations. I am pleased that this growth in membership also comes with increased coordination of national and regional earth observation activities which were originally either disjointed or non-existent, especially in the developing world. The recent surge in membership is largely attributed to African countries joining GEO.
Of course, growth in numbers would be meaningless if we were not making progress towards achieving the overall goal of a functional Global Earth Observation System of Systems, so I want to reflect on some of the areas in which GEO has been visible and is making a difference, especially in Africa.
Food security
Food security in Africa is threatened by erratic weather patterns (including droughts and flooding), as well as insects.
The early warning and food security monitoring initiative in East Africa covering countries such as Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Somali and Djibouti is ensuring that over 200 million people, the majority of whom are highly dependent upon low-input farming and subsistence agriculture, have enhanced access to satellite data. Programmes like the European Commission-funded DevCoCast (using GEONETCast) improve the information base for a better understanding of the environmental and agricultural conditions in the region. These initiatives are also coupled with improvement and building of capacity in various ministries of agriculture to deal with this information through dedicated actions.
The Sahel region, which is often invaded by the desert locust, the most feared of all the locusts worldwide and known to form swarms of adults or bands of hoppers with mobility of up to 1 000 km a week, is also benefiting from the GEONETCast system data which is sent to decision makers at national and regional level.This data enable a near real-time follow up of the desert locust situation in the region. The information has contributed significantly to speeding up decision processes and helps to fight the desert locust plagues and related food security situations. In particular, the frequency of the production of a new desert locust map and its broadcasting every 10 days via stand-alone low-cost receiving stations has contributed significantly to agricultural planning.
Fighting wild fire in southern Africa
Fire outbreaks are known to have a devastating effect on property, livestock, and economic and social infrastructure. Worse, they threaten the lives of many people. The South African Advanced Fire Information System which provides automated fire alerts to pre-defined areas has been used to great success in our country in the monitoring of fires along electric power lines. Today, fire warnings and alerts form part of our televisions news broadcast. The DevCoCast project in which we are participants has successfully demonstrated that alarms can be disseminated via GEONETCast to a fire control centre. Having been adopted by fire control centres in the country, the system will now be deployed in several centres in the Southern African region through the European Union-funded African Monitoring of the Environment for Sustainable Development programme with the involvement of NASA (Modis), EUMETSAT, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (South Africa), the European Commission, the African Union, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and the GEO Disaster social benefit area.
GEO Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON)
By coordinating the collection, management and use of biodiversity observations, GEO’s Biodiversity Observation Network will enhance our ability to assess biodiversity trends so that governments can promote conservation and sustainable use and meet their international obligations. In particular, this initiative will enable us to manage protected areas, assessing global biodiversity change, map global ecosystems, visualise ecosystem services change, and track the health of our oceans. South Africa will continue its active participation and support of this initiative. We believe this initiative will play a critical role to support the implementation of the agreements reached at the recent Nagoya Biodiversity Summit.
Health
It has become evident that the risk of disease outbreaks can be greatly reduced by incorporating Earth observation data into decisions about global, regional, local, and personal health. Here, I want to acknowledge the role of two GEO initiatives.In the first, work is under way to reduce the risk of Lyme disease and West Nile encephalitis by identifying best practices for land-use management using earth observation. In the other, the Meningitis Environmental Risk Information Technologies initiative, forecasts of drought and dry spells in the Sahel are linked with disease outbreaks in central Africa. Again, we should not forget one of the biggest killers in the African continent, malaria, and the role earth observation can play to combat it.
However, I must acknowledge that, while we have achieved this much; our success will be short-lived unless we commit to intensifying our capacity-building initiatives in the developing world, in terms of training, enhancing institutional capacities, and modernising and building earth observation infrastructure. It my hope that the GEO call for capacity building proposals will facilitate the mobilisation of funds to address capacity challenges in developing countries. We also need to be bold in implementing our data-sharing plan. In this instance I would like to indicate my appreciation to China who, together with Brazil, has enabled the reception of CBERS 2B data in South Africa, for distribution to the SADC region. This commitment by China and Brazil is significant in terms of access to data in the region. It is an example of the value that GEO brings where existing infrastructure is able to be used in multiple settings. We are looking forward to continuing this partnership in the framework of the upcoming CBERS 3 and CBERS 4 satellites.
It is my view that, even as we adopt the declaration later today, we must urge all governments to enhance both in-situ and space-based observations systems, to channel additional resources towards capacity-building initiatives, and to provide open, unrestricted access free of charge, specifically to poorer countries. I am hopeful that, when we meet again in 2013, we shall have concrete plans for GEO beyond 2015.
