Dr. Jane Goodall Highlights Company’s Contribution with Visit to Headquarters
Longmont, Colo., April 26, 2007 – DigitalGlobe®, provider of the world’s highest- resolution imagery and geospatial information products, was recently recognized for their continued contribution to conservation efforts during a recent visit by Dr. Jane Goodall to the company’s headquarters.
With work in Tanzania, Uganda and Congo, The Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) utilized DigitalGlobe’s QuickBird satellite imagery to make effective conservation decisions, based on information about the status of chimpanzee habitats and where and how people use their land. DigitalGlobe’s QuickBird satellite imagery has the highest spatial resolution (0.6 meters) available to map land uses in African villages.
“Human landscapes in Western Tanzania are difficult to map with traditional medium resolution sensors because scattered settlements, farmlands and natural vegetation are highly intermixed,” said Dr. Lilian Pintea, Director of Conservation Science of JGI. “By providing objective and spatially accurate data on both chimpanzee habitats and human land uses, QuickBird imagery revolutionized the way we can do applied research and inform conservation actions.”
With the aid of satellite imagery, JGI has mapped human structures, footpaths, farms and forests to utilize in the development of a Conservation Action Plan and village land use plans in the USAID funded Greater Gombe Ecosystem Program. Satellite imagery will be also used to map tree canopies for assessing chimpanzee food availability and feeding behavior research in Gombe National Park. In remote places such as the Masito-Ugalla Ecosystem, the imagery could show illegal logging and farming and support biodiversity and socio-economic surveys. In the Greater Mahale Ecosystem, QuickBird imagery will be used in collaboration with the Frankfurt Zoological Society as a way to evaluate, monitor and mitigate the potential impact of a road construction outside Mahale National Park.
“It’s so rewarding for us to see how our imagery is helping to advance such an important cause as people are finding more and more uses for satellite imagery,” said Walter Scott, founder and CTO of DigitalGlobe. “Conservation projects show the potential to use satellite imagery to explore large swaths of terrain.”
In 1977, Dr. Goodall established the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI). Today JGI is a global organization supporting the research at Gombe in addition to many other programs for research, education, community development and conservation programs.
Dr. Goodall travels an average of 300 days per year speaking about the threats facing chimpanzees and other environmental concerns, and about her reasons for hope that humankind will solve the problems facing our planet.
About The Jane Goodall Institute
Founded in 1977, the Jane Goodall Institute continues Dr. Goodall’s pioneering research of chimpanzee behavior – research that transformed scientific perceptions of the relationship between humans and animals. Today, the Institute is a global leader in the effort to protect chimpanzees and their habitats. It also is widely recognized for establishing innovative community-centered conservation and development programs in Africa, and the Roots & Shoots education program, which has groups in more than 95 countries.
About DigitalGlobe
Longmont, Colo.-based DigitalGlobe (www.digitalglobe.com) is the clear leader in the global commercial Earth imagery and geospatial information market. The company’s technical superiority and innovation, unparalleled commitment to customer service, extensive business partner network and open systems philosophy make DigitalGlobe the preferred supplier of imagery products to government and commercial markets. DigitalGlobe is the only geospatial content provider to take an end-to-end approach to geospatial imagery, from acquiring proprietary high-resolution images through a leading- edge satellite and aerial network, to integrating and distributing that data through GlobeXplorer, a proprietary web-based search and retrieval system that makes it easy to find, purchase and download global imagery. DigitalGlobe’s QuickBird satellite is the world’s highest resolution commercial imaging system. The company’s next-generation WorldView 1 satellite is scheduled to launch in mid-2007, and its WorldView 2 satellite is anticipated to launch in late 2008. The company’s updated and growing ImageLibrary contains over three hundred million square kilometers of satellite and aerial imagery suited to countless applications for people who map, view, navigate and study the earth.