Published on 15 February 2022
VITO Remote Sensing is proud to announce the kick-off of a new collaboration with the Belgian Development Agency (Enabel). They will work for Enabel in the REPO project that supports pastoral and agro-pastoral communities in western Niger. Within this REPO project (2021-2024) Enabel is contributing to the resilience and social and economic stability of pastoral communities in Niger. One of the main objectives of the project is to support a sustained access of pastoralists to resources such as rangelands and water points. Access to reliable data where pastoralists can find the best grazing grounds and how much biomass is actually available for the herding livestock is crucial information the pastoral communities.
With this new collaboration VITO Remote Sensing will support Enabel to elaborate a technical roadmap for the mapping of pasture biomass from space. The collaboration is kicked off with a workshop in Niamey, Niger (14-17 February 2022) where VITO and Enabel will come together with the different authorities and institutes that deal with pastoral resource management. The aim of the workshop is to align with the local actors and define which information on pasture is most relevant and how to collect it. The user feedback will allow us to define the user needs and objectives which are crucial to develop a satellite based monitoring system that can truly support the pastoralists.