Beth Kaplin, core faculty in the Department of Environmental Studies, will attend a conference of remote-sensing scientists and conservationists at the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, January 7;11. The workshop will focus on how to set up a formal organization of conservationists, including academics and scientists, involved in remote sensing.
Remote sensing refers to the use of satellite or aircraft-based aerial sensor technologies to detect, classify, and interpret objects and phenomenon on earth, Kaplin said. So I use remote sensing to, for example, classify vegetation types within tropical forest where chimpanzees live, to understand how they use forest and are affected by forest disturbance.
An earlier organization, the Conservation Remote Sensing Working Group, which had withered for lack of funding, is being reactivated. Kaplin said she hopes that its revival will help invigorate conservation research by adding focus on new technologies and approaches.
At the conference, Kaplin will discuss her work with the Regional Network for Conservation Educators in Albertine Rift (RNCEAR), in Rwanda.
