50 years ago 20 million people took to the streets for the sake of the environment. It was the world's first Earth Day. Earth Day, which is celebrated annually on April 22, is usually commemorated with outdoor activities demonstrating support for environmental protection. These include planting trees, collecting roadside or beach trash, conducting, or participating in, recycling and conservation programs. While the corona virus lock down or curfews restricted some of the usual activities, organizations, educators, and activists worldwide devised numerous ways to mark the 50th anniversary of this all-important global day which is dedicated to climate action this year, without leaving their homes or offices for those working from the office. Looking through the eyes of a pandemic such as COVID-19, this environment and health relationship unfortunately becomes even more acutely evident at the societal and individual levels. What is remarkable is that almost all of the recommended approaches to mitigating global emissions and slowing climate change — such as ending deforestation and reducing air travel — also would help to significantly reduce the risk of global pandemics. Earth Day also recognizes a collective responsibility, as called for in the 1992 Rio Declaration, to promote harmony with nature and the Earth to achieve a just balance among the economic, social and environmental needs of present and future generations of humanity. International Earth Day provides an opportunity to raise public awareness around the world to the challenges regarding the well-being of the planet and all the life it supports.
It is a call for us to look at things such as climate change mitigation and resilience efforts to drive our growth and align our actions to the carrying capacities of our planet and people. On this Earth Day, RCMRD’s core services in the development of products and services and training of users of earth observation and geospatial technologies in member States and beyond. In line with this, several activities and projects are being implemented in even in the face of this pandemic. More than 1000 personnel from member States were trained and will be trained in various areas including general GIS and remote sensing, natural resources management, hazards and risk assessments, land surveying and administration, water resources monitoring, climate vulnerability mapping, open source tools among others. The Centre also continues implementing thematic projects in various countries. The Biodiversity and Protected Areas Management Programme (BIOPAMA) aims to improve the long-term conservation and sustainable use of natural resources in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, in protected areas and surrounding communities. The RCMRD and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) are implementing a project entitled “Strengthening the Capacity of Ministries of Agriculture in Monitoring Downstream Investments using Geo-information Technologies for Informed Investment Decisions and Policies.”
The GMES and Africa project supported the development of various products and training activities in the IGAD region. The implemented services and training activities include land degradation assessment and monitoring, wetlands assessment and mapping and establishment of open geographic reference vector databases for agro-ecological zoning. These services are being implemented in Djibouti, Eritrea, Mauritius, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda. Other notable services were in land governance through the NELGA and NEPAD LGP projects that seek to assist member States to build and strengthen existing capacities in designing and mainstreaming Land Governance into their country strategic and/or development plans and promote research in the field of land governance and to provide necessary data to support government policy and program implementation as well as monitoring. RCMRD is the hub for SERVIR Eastern and Southern Africa Project in Eastern and Southern Africa, a partnership of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).Through the SERVIR project, countries in East Africa continued to benefit from the implementation and support for national crop monitors. These monitors help stakeholders in countries regularly assess crop conditions and estimate productivity of a given season. RCMRD supported crop monitors in Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda and plans are underway to support other countries in the coming years. Delivering research-based solutions that harness mapping of resources for development has continued and through the SERVIR Eastern and Southern Africa Project. Here we are working on agriculture and food security, land use land cover and ecosystems, water resources and hydro climatic disasters, weather and climate. RCMRD conducts early warning monitoring and mapping out water and hydroclimatic disasters like the flooding in Busia County and Kisumu County and advicing Governments on potential risks.