Conference Agenda

Biodiversa+, a multinational partnership co-developed with the European Commission, aims to support biodiversity goals and harmonise monitoring methods across Europe. Globally, natural habitats are increasingly degraded, making new conservation and restoration actions a key priority in the EU's Biodiversity Strategy and Nature Restoration Law. However, inconsistent mapping and monitoring methods hinder effective assessments and conservation planning for valuable habitats. To address this, Biodiversa+ launched the Habitat Pilot.

Remote sensing (RS) offers a cost-effective solution for large-scale habitat monitoring but is underutilised, particularly for high-value habitats, such as those listed under the Habitats Directive. The pilot focuses on testing the applicability of RS methods in two European-wide, threatened habitat types: grasslands and wetlands.

The pilot includes four modules:

1. Review of existing habitat mapping and monitoring methods
2. Application of RS methods to map grasslands and wetlands
3. Use of RS to monitor habitat conditions
4. A synthesis and roadmap for future work

In its initial phase, the pilot involved 11 European countries and reviewed over 40 habitat mapping approaches, evaluating their strengths, weaknesses, and potential for integration into a standardised monitoring framework. Data availability among the partners was also assessed.

The review revealed regional differences in the use of RS technologies, with some areas more advanced and others still more reliant on traditional field methods. Despite these differences, a set of shared RS-based approaches was identified for testing in the subsequent pilot modules.

The pilot is linked with ongoing projects like EU Grassland Watch and integrates new modelling frameworks such as NaturaSat, alongside locally developed methods. The overarching aim is to support knowledge sharing, comparison, testing, and adaptation of methods to pave the way for transnational, harmonised RS-based biodiversity mapping and monitoring.

Satellite remote sensing is playing an increasingly important role for nature conservation agencies by providing spatially explicit and temporally dense data for monitoring and evaluating ecosystems and their use.

From the perspective of a national nature conservation agency, remote sensing methods offer important support in the following areas of application:

• Monitoring of biodiversity, landscapes, as well as the drivers of their change

• Fulfillment of reporting obligations from the local level to the EU, such as

• Enforcement of nature conservation laws

• Monitoring the effectiveness of nature conservation measures

On the basis of the fields of application mentioned, we show how remote sensing is already being used by nature conservation authorities in Germany. Secondly, we outline areas of development and the potentials for the future use of remote sensing for authorities in nature conservation such as for the upcoming activities under the Nature Restoration Law.

We also refer to the fact that remote sensing products are increasingly being used as a basis for ecosystem modeling and nature conservation planning. Therefore, we also aim to consider the future role of remote sensing products as continuous and spatially explicit input data for digital twins.

In addition to technical maturity, organizational and structural prerequisites also play a major role in whether remote sensing can be used successfully for official nature conservation purposes. We hence show which prerequisites should be in place so that remote sensing can support the work of nature conservation authorities in the future.

Overall, satellite remote sensing has great potential to increase efficiency and transparency in official nature conservation by promoting data-based decisions and strengthening accountability to the public.

PEOPLE-ECCO (Enhancing Ecosystems Conservation through Earth Observation Solutions, Capacity Development and Co-design) is a project funded by ESA under the Earth Observation Science for Society (EO4Society) programme. The project answers to critical needs identified by Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) striving to improve evidence-based ecosystem conservation. The project aims to develop and demonstrate innovative Earth Observation (EO)-integrated methods and tools to 1) monitor protected areas conditions and management effectiveness, and 2) identify high-priority areas to be protected. PEOPLE-ECCO follows a co-design and user-centred approach. This means we develop the tools together with conservation CSOs/NGOs and provide tailored capacity development enabling them to integrate these EO methodologies in their operational practices.

PEOPLE-ECCO commenced in October 2024 and will run for two years. In this presentation we will outline our overall approach which consists of two interacting parts: a user-focused part dedicated to user engagement, requirement consolidation and capacity development, and a technology-focused part focussing on EO-integrated methods and tools testing, development and demonstration. A central role is reserved for six NGOs/CSOs active in conservation actions with an interest in taking up EO solutions. These “Early Adopters” will jointly contribute to the development of actionable and relevant EO-integrated methods and tools. The Early Adopters in PEOPLE-ECCO (African Parks, Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds, Lebanon Reforestation Initiative, IUCN Vietnam, Prince Edwards Island Watershed Alliance and Reef Check Malaysia) are distributed over four continents, and the ecosystems they jointly manage cover a range of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.

Outputs of PEOPLE-ECCO aim to contribute to the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), especially to GBF Target 3 (Conserve 30 percent of land, water and seas) and Target 20 (Strengthen Capacity-Building, Technology Transfer, and Scientific and Technical Cooperation for Biodiversity).

The Horizon Europe project Nature FIRST, Forensic Intelligence and Remote Sensing Technologies for Nature Conservation, is generating different tools to support biodiversity monitoring and human-wildlife conflict (HWC) prevention.

Using Satellite Remote Sensing (SRS) technologies with a collaborative approach, Nature FIRST demonstrated the generation of a habitat mapping model in a given territory, which integrates the knowledge of their key actors. This results in semi-automatic, efficient, affordable and easy to update habitat distribution maps (EUNIS, Habitats of community interest), along with an automatic change detection system through available Copernicus data. The Habitat mapping model approach is intended to be applicable to protected area management, to monitor the conservation status of habitats and their dynamics. It also supports the establishment of conservation objectives, along with action and monitoring plans by the entities responsible for biodiversity in the territory.

In this context, the integration of data and information is key. The Nature FIRST system, based on the Sensing Clues platform, makes use of semantic knowledge graphs, which links species, habitat and Natura 2000 site data, together with SRS data. This framework supports additional applications for biodiversity management, such as predictive species movement, habitat suitability maps, and digital twins for monitoring and predicting HWC.

We showcase the practical outcomes of Nature FIRST, i) the creation of habitat mapping models on the territories of Bulgaria, Romania, Spain and Ukraine; ii) An associated habitat change detection system; iii) how the organisation of SRS and in situ data has allowed us to generate a predictive model of brown bear movements, their habitat suitability maps and a digital twin to monitor and predict conflicts, the Human-Bear Conflict Radar.

Maintaining functional ecosystems under anthropogenic pressures requires understanding cumulative impacts on habitat suitability and connectivity to support species conservation. We propose an integrative framework for identifying and preserving functionally connected habitats, utilizing computational tools that enhance conservation planning. This approach begins by modeling effective connectivity through three main steps: (1) estimating habitat permeability, (2) quantifying ecological distances, and (3) calculating effective connectivity for each species.

The approach then scales effective connectivity to the landscape level through the concept of “functional habitat,” linking niche suitability in environmental space with connectivity in geographic space to assess cumulative impacts across landscapes for conservation planning. The framework combines geographic information science, ecological niche modeling, and network science to model species movement across complex landscapes. Applied through scenario analysis to hydropower development impacts in Norway, this framework revealed extensive habitat loss due to fragmentation. The development of the ConScape library enable rapid, high-resolution assessment of connectivity and habitat functionality, facilitating data-driven conservation.

Finally, a sensitivity analysis developed within this framework identifies priority areas for conservation by examining the effects of local landscape changes. In Southern Norway, this analysis suggested that strategically placed wildlife overpasses could achieve a fourfold increase in connected habitat. Together, these methodologies support sustainable landscape management through scenario analysis, spatial prioritization, and mitigation strategies.

The German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection has launched the Natural Climate Protection Action Program and commissioned the German Space Agency at DLR to implement measure 8.9 "Tapping the potential of remote sensing for natural climate protection". Started on 01.01.2025, the aim of the EO4ANK-project is to set up the EO4ANK-portal, including a modular EO toolbox, together with partners from science and industry and in close consultation with representatives of the German authorities, who will be the main users. The EO4ANK-Portal will support German authorities at federal, state and local level in implementing the measures from the action program and provide tools for an efficient environmental and nature conservation monitoring. Therefore, a total of 18 tools from the areas of peatlands, floodplains, forests, wilderness, soils and urban areas will be developed and made operationally available on the portal (e.g. heat islands in cities, determination of greenhouse gas emissions from peatlands and their reduction through rewetting, overflow areas etc.). The first tools should be operational by the end of 2026. It is important to provide the portal without any follow-up costs, which is why the toolbox is largely based on Copernicus data. In addition to the development and implementation of the necessary technical solutions, user training also plays a key role. The tools developed must be integrated into the operational working environment of the authorities and users must be trained accordingly, which is why numerous learning materials are produced and made available on the portal.

Habitat destruction, fragmentation, and degradation via human-induced land-cover and land-use change are the predominant drivers of biodiversity loss and are the most significant threats to chimpanzee survival. Conservation practitioners and decision-makers must understand and monitor the relative condition of chimpanzees and other forest and woodland habitats, the threats they face, and how this changes over time to plan and implement cost-effective conservation strategies and measure success. Recent developments in remote sensing and cloud computing such as NASA’s OPERA Land Surface Disturbance Alerts provide near-real-time access to vegetation cover loss intelligence from Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2 (HLS) scenes. It provides updates on vegetation cover, and disturbance, and estimates confidence every 2-4 days at 30-meter resolution across the globe. Decision-makers could potentially move from simply documenting the forests already lost toward faster action to stop illegal activities on the ground, slowing and preventing deforestation before it happens. However, to realize this potential, local decision-makers need easy-to-use, cost-effective, and practical solutions to connect and access relevant information and tools. There is an urgent need to find innovative ways to convert these near-real-time EO data into actionable information, meaningful and useful to support specific decision-making processes and build local capacities to access and use these products to drive action and impact. In this presentation, we will discuss the feasibility of OPERA data combined with Planetary Variables from Planet to support local communities and governments to monitor and manage chimpanzee habitats in private, village, district, and national protected areas in Tanzania and Uganda. We will then share ongoing efforts to integrate OPERA alerts into an existing Decision Support System to monitor habitats and threats and inform conservation strategies, and actions and measure success as part of national chimpanzee action plans in Tanzania and Uganda.