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Amnesty International with the help of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) have acquired commercial grade satellite imagery (GeoTiffs) at a reduced price from DigitalGlobe the main supplier to GoogleEarth and have created a 

program that provides technical expertise to human rights groups by helping Amnesty International USA with a new online effort to monitor threatened settlements in the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan and provide evidence of destroyed villages.

The project is at the forefront of efforts by human rights groups to use satellite cameras to help protect vulnerable populations. It will allow computer users around the globe to visually track the status of settlements Amnesty International considers possible targets of attack.

The new site includes up-to-date images on 12 intact but vulnerable villages as well as archival satellite photos documenting the destruction of a dozen settlements in Darfur since January 2005. Lars Bromley, project director for the AAAS Science and Human Rights Program, said the commercially available photos can show objects as small as two feet across, sufficient to show destruction of huts and other structures.

"We provide the geospatial support," Bromley said. "We’re just providing a new form of content," but content that can have dramatic impact. "By analyzing geospatial images, we can see that whole villages, some with more than 1,000 homes, have been destroyed" since the beginning of 2005, Bromley said. The images also show the appearance of makeshift settlements of displaced persons in close proximity to the small contingent of African Union monitoring forces in Darfur.

This is a fantastic and new form of collaboration between scientists, geomaticians, human rights advocates, and satellite image providers.  The program received a one-year pilot grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation that recently was renewed for three years.  This project is harnessing powerful elements of communication and geospatial data infrastructures and making them work for citizens everywhere and in this case the most vulnerable.

In addition to Amnesty International USA, the AAAS geospatial imaging program’s partners include the U.N. Special Advisor for the Prevention of Genocide; the National Resources Defense Council; the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; the U.S. Campaign for Burma and EQUITAS, the international center for human rights education. Three satellite image companies—DigitalGlobe in Longmont, Colorado, GeoEye in Dulles, Virginia and ImageSat in Netherlands Antilles—have provided images at discounted prices. In addition to Zimbabwe and Darfur, the AAAS program also has done some work on Lebanon and will be turning its attention to Burma (also known as Myanmar).

• Via Science and Development Net
• BBC article Satellite mapping aids Darfur relief