US embassy cable - 05PARIS5096

UNCLAS PARIS 005096 
 
SIPDIS 
 
FROM USMISSION UNESCO PARIS 
 
STATE FOR IO/T JANE COWLEY, EB PAUL ACETO, OES/STAS ANDREW 
W. REYNOLDS 
STATE FOR NSC GENE WHITNEY 
STATE FOR NSF 
STATE FOR NASA Applied Sciences 
 
E.O. 12958:     N/A 
TAGS: AORC, TSPL, EAID, SENV, SOCI, UNESCO, KSCI 
SUBJECT:  UNESCO: NASA DISCUSSIONS ON REMOTE SENSING OF 
BIOSPHERE AND WORLD HERITAGE SITES 
 
1.   Summary and Introduction. NASA's Program Director for 
Applied Sciences, Mr. Ron Birk, and Mr. Steve Ambrose of the 
Program's Disaster Management group, met with various 
specialists in UNESCO's Earth Sciences Division for 
exploratory discussions about using NASA "remote sensing" 
technology on focused projects. End summary and 
introduction. 
 
2.   The recent MOU between NASA and UNESCO focuses on 
utilizing remote sensing technology to acquire baseline 
environmental information about World Heritage and biosphere 
reserve sites. 
 
3.   NASA is interested in remote sensing of these sites as 
a means of providing baseline measurements techniques that 
could lead to scientific predictions of natural disasters 
such as the recent Southeast Asia tsunami. 
 
4.    UNESCO officials seek to utilize remote sensing data 
for the management of World Heritage and biosphere reserves, 
as well as monitoring global water resources. It will 
develop two to three projects in the next few months using 
already funded NASA data projects, and it will also initiate 
discussions on the education programs. 
 
OLIVER