PNI - 2011
An engineer from Centrale School, in Paris, Guy Reinaud started his career in data processing, within the CENTI group. He managed the team that developed the software of the first micro-computer in 1970. Then, he joined ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) as a General Director both in France and overseas from 1973 to 1992. It was that year that he represented the European Chemical Industry at the Rio Conference. Since then, he has been the President of an NGO called Pro-Natura International: originally founded in Brazil, PNI has been very innovative in both its development and its partnerships with industry.
Guy is also the Administrator of many institutions acting in sustainable development; among these are VIGEO, Eco-Carbone, the French Fund for Nature and Environment, IUCN France, the European Foundation for Sustainable Territories, JTS Seeds.
Finally, Guy is a « Fellow » of the Royal Geographic Society of London and he was awarded the First Prize in technological innovation for the Third World by the Altran Foundation in 2002.
Pro-Natura International is an original NGO linking poverty alleviation in Southern countries with biodiversity conservation and action against climate changes.
Generally, there exists a vicious circle between poverty in rural communities, non-sustainable agriculture, deforestation and increasingly fast climate changes. Pro-Natura works at stopping this vicious circle and has demonstrated that it is possible to reverse such a situation on a large scale, in Latin America as well as in Asia or Africa.
To break this vicious circle between poverty and environment degradation, Pro-Natura offers economic solutions that allow populations to both improve their standard of living and preserve or even restore their natural resources. This is particularly feasible when a system of participative governance is implemented.
We have submitted three projects so far that have been granted satellite imagery:
- In Ivory Coast, Taï Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a Biosphere Reserve. Land use changes have caused losses of forest cover, which in addition to contributing to climate changes also result in critical losses in biological diversity and other ecosystem services. These losses are producing negative impacts on human welfare and local cultures. The project has assessed the feasibility of developing an efficient and effective methodology for measuring avoided deforestation (and associated carbon bio-sequestration) at the landscape level using Earth Observation from space combined with ground surveys. The attached report (left) describes the technical aspects of the project and its conclusions. It is written in French - a translation is underway.
- In Mozambique, the project called "Planète Revisitée" has done a series of biodiversity inventories - as it is planning to do in 10 other hottest spots of the planet over the next 10 years. Landsat imagery was mostly used.
The next big project will be about agricultural development in Conakry, Guinea, and we are already working on imagery north of Kamsar.