Fire is closely associated with deforestion, land cover change, land degradation, and losses in species diversity. Smoke from fires can become a regional health and navigation issue. Anthropogenic fires are the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, only exceeded by fossil fuel combustion as a source. GMS data was used successfully to monitor smoke sources and smoke movement during the 1997 fires of Indonesia. We propose to develop a multisource program to monitor fires and smoke in Southeast Asia.
Fisheries provide a major source of protein for people in Asia Pacific countries.
The cumulative impacts of overfishing using advanced technologies could lead to a major loss in food security for the region. Monitoring of fiing effort, in terms of the number of fishing vessels which are active, when combined with total catch, can be used to assess the population of the fished species. As a proof of concept we propose to implement a monitoring program for the regions sqd fishing activities. Squid fishing vessels use large banks of high intensity lights to attract squid to the ocean surface for netting. If successful, this effort will later be expanded to the Philippines and Gulf of Thailand.