​​​A decision by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to investigate the possibility of commercialising  access to satellite data used by conservation agencies may negatively affect conservation efforts across the world, in particular in South Africa and the rest of Africa. This is according to Dr Helen de Klerk, a Senior Lecturer in the Geography and Environmental Studies Department at Stellenbosch University (SU), and Dr Zoltan Szantoi, a  Research Associate from the same department.

Their concerns have been publicly raised by a letter written in conjunction with scholars from:

• the RSPB Centre for Conservation Science of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in the United Kingdom (UK); 
• the Wildlife Biology Program of the Department of Ecosystem and Conservation Studies at the University of Montana in the United States (US); 
• the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the Universidad del Rosario in Colombia; 
• BirdLife International in Cambridge, UK; 
• the CAESCG at the University of Almería in Spain; 
• the Betty & Gordon Moore Center for Science at Conservation International in the US; 
• the BC3-Basque Centre for Climate Change at the Scientific Campus of the University of the Basque Country in Spain;
• the Institute of Zoology at the Zoological Society of London in the UK; 
• Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation at the University of Twente in the Netherlands; 
• the Institute of Geography and Geology in Germany; 
• and the School of Natural Sciences and Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University in the UK. 

​The letter was recently published in the prestigious international journal, Science(13 July 2018, Vol. 361, Issue 6398, p. 139-140, doi: 10.1126/science.aau2650).

“The availability of high-resolution satellite data at no cost, which was made possible by the USGS in 2008, has just about revolutionised the ability of conservationists to monitor biodiversity globally by detecting changes, setting conservation priorities, and targeting conservation action through this data," say the scholars. 

“This public statement by scholars in the field of conservation and ecology and from the remote sensing and geospatial domains is aimed at making a heavy-weight call for high resolution satellite data to remain freely available to all, because it would impact our ability to map and monitor habitat of species such as waterbirds or chimpanzees. Biodiversity sustains ecological functioning and monitoring it is crucial as it impacts food security, natural resources such as water, farming, and climate change to name a few," adds De Klerk.

“Requiring users to pay would put these images beyond the reach of conservationists. It would halt time-series (a sequence of numerical data points measured over a time interval) analyses that have been useful in monitoring the effects of climate change, land-cover change, and terrestrial monitoring of coasts, likely hindering the achievement of the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals to which many countries subscribe. 

“Even though the Sentinel-2 satellites by the European Commission provide similar data freely, in certain areas, especially in Equatorial Africa, cloud cover hampers observations, and thus Landsat's imagery is absolutely necessary to gather enough information for time series analysis and land cover change monitoring," says Szantoi.

Of the 17 goals of the Sustainable Development Goals, nine refer to sustainability with regards food security, water resources, clean energy, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, climate change, the oceans, seas and marine resources, and ecosystems. 

De Klerk and Szantoi say that recent news of the USGS convening an advisory committee to determine whether users of the service would be willing to pay for increased spectral and special resolution images, is “deeply troubling" for both academics and conservation practitioners. The decision to do away with free access will impact users ability to monitor important habitats, including forests and fynbos to aid good decision-making and planning, as well as to create alerts of when protected areas and other natural landscapes are being impacted by illegal activities," add De Klerk and Szantoi.

“Biodiversity is in crisis, with extinction rates orders of magnitude higher than background levels. Underfunded conservationists need to target their limited resources effectively. The USGS's decision to make data freely available was followed by the Copernicus Program of the European Commission that subsequently made their data available as well. These resources have been instrumental to biodiversity research," say the scholars.

“Assessments of environmental changes such as deforestation are now readily available. The current spatial and spectral resolution of Landsat data make them appropriate to many conservation applications, and although they are not always ideal, pragmatic researchers with limited resources use them regularly. We would really urge the USGS to reconsider their position and to continue to provide data from the Landsat program freely to all users."

Photo: Staff from CapeNature learn how to use freely available satellite data during a workshop presented by CapeNature's GIS team. (Supplied by CapeNature staff)