Stuttgart, February 22, 1995
The European Natural Heritage foundation and Daimler-Benz have announced a new milestone in their five years of co-operation. In honour of European Natural Conservation Year and the UN Climate Conference, the Daimler-Benz group will be providing access to Daimler-Benz satellite and environmental technology to support the Fund in setting up and maintaining over the long term an international network of nature reserves in Europe and North Africa."Environment and Mobility" is the theme of the project. It aims to provide important, up-to-date information on the condition of our ecosystem with the aid of aerial and ground reconnaissance by earth remote sensing satellites built by the corporate unit Daimler-Benz Aerospace (Dasa). The focus will be on environmental problems such as the destruction of natural habitats, the extinction of species, dying forests, conservation of the climate, water pollution, urban sprawl and the draining of ecologically important wetlands.
"The collaboration between Daimler-Benz and the European Natural Heritage Fund", according to Matthias Kleinert, Senior Executive Officer for Public Relations and Economic Policy at Daimler-Benz AG, "is based on the corporate principle that our work at Daimler-Benz serves people and their environment. We owe it to future generations to use our natural resources prudently and sparingly. Daimler-Benz has a large wealth of environmental technology at its disposal for this purpose."
The Dasa/Dornier earth remote sensing satellite will be used to identify the causes of environmental changes and to forecast longer-term developments. The data will come partly from the European Space Agency's ERS 1 satellite which has been operating successfully since 1991; equipped with microwave instruments, it can carry out measurements of the earth's surface regardless of time of day or weather. The "bird's eye" data, which will in future be assisting the European Natural Heritage Fund in its work, will continue to be supplied through into the next century thanks to the ESA's new ERS-2 satellite; the launch of this satellite, built by Dasa/Dornier, is scheduled for April 1995.
Also with the support of the Daimler-Benz group, the European Natural Heritage Fund has since 1992 been operating its own aircraft-borne aerial documentation system. This and satellite ground and air reconnaissance will facilitate decision-making in the field of European conservation and environmental policy.
Across Europe, wetlands, lakes, alluvial zones and forest systems, including the endangered Mediterranean scrub, are scanned in a 100 km strip parallel to the flight path of the satellite. The reflected signals from a radar sensor allow the character and condition of vegetation and waters to be analysed and ecological cadastres and landscape structure models to be produced. Data on the topography of the earth's surface facilitates planning and management of large or remote European nature reserves.
A further important instrument of the ERS-2 earth remote sensing satellite will be the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME), which will measure the quantity and distribution of ozone and trace gases in the earth's atmosphere, thus supplying up-to-date data on the depletion of the ozone layer. Information can also be obtained about UV radiation at ground level. It will be possible to supply this data to environmental experts throughout the world.
The collaboration between Daimler-Benz and the European Natural Heritage Fund is regarded by both sides as a framework arrangement which is linked with specific sponsorship programmes and products of the Daimler-Benz corporate units. For example, Mercedes-Benz AG is planning a sponsorship programme which will take as its theme "Mobility and Nature" on land. Over and beyond this, AEG Daimler-Benz Industrie's advanced telecommunication and solar technologies have been making substantial contributions to advanced environmental management on the part of the European Natural Heritage Fund for several years now.
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