AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2012 - 76

In Costa Rica, two DVDs filmed and produced by CAVU are now in every school in the country. Fast-paced and deliberately kept to less than a half hour in length, the videos let schoolchildren hear other Costa Ricans explain the value of their natural resources, the importance of managing them for their future, and see videos of the rivers, flowers, trees, and wildlife from ground level as well view the high-impact images of their country from the air. Other projects have opened up water issues faced by hundreds of thousands of people, for there is far less clean water in the world than there is easily accessible oil. One CAVU film explores the aquifers on which so many people depend, showing how small many are and that they must have time to replenish themselves or everyone in the area will be without water. In one project, CAVU worked with scientists and the people living along the coast of Belize who are personally affected by the health of that country’s huge reef, second in size only to the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. The country has been dragging its feet on establishing an integrated coastal management plan. Meanwhile, as

explained in the CAVU film by the very people affected, 85 percent of the reef is now dying or dead, bleached white. That has resulted in a dropoff of fishing stocks. Combined with illegal removal of coastal mangroves (which anchor and stabilize the shoreline and provide shelter and food for juvenile fish), overfishing and illegal incursions into Belizean waters by fisherman from Honduras and Guatemala, the supply of fish is being diminished. CAVU personnel went from village to village along the coast of Belize, projecting the film on sheets tacked to outside walls of houses to show villagers, many of whom rely on the reef and fish for food and for income from guiding tourists to fish and scuba dive. The video went viral, becoming more than a tool for education; it is being used by Belizeans to pressure their elected officials to finalize a coastal management plan to protect the vital mangroves, fishing stocks, and save the reef from further degradation. More and more organizations and governments are demanding that a dollar figure be established for their “national capital,” their natural resources. The dirty little secret about natural resources is now being pulled out of the back room and discussed openly: What is the dollar value of the rain forest, the fisheries, or the aquifers over the long term versus development in the short term? How much damage, in dollars, has already been done? The way to get answers is through sophisticated aerial GIS photo mapping of and data collection from each area of interest. It means flying high-resolution cameras producing GPS-referenced, multi-spectrum images, both straight down and oblique, over precise routes, to establish baseline data. And then, to do it again and again at specified intervals, to clearly show trends and magnitudes of damON SHORT FINAL at Carate Airstrip in Osa, Costa Rica age over time. (top). Leading Peruvian conservationist Enrique Ortiz General aviation airplanes and former congressman Bruce Babbit on the River of are essential to get this done. the Mother of God (Rio Madre de Dios).
76 | AOPA PILOT October 2012

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AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2012

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