Natural and cultural sites face a variety of potential threats including: uncontrolled agricultural and urban development, regional conflicts, natural catastrophes, climate change, excess of tourism, and so on.

The impressive number of satellites, that have been observing the Earth now for more than 30 years, offers a unique opportunity to analyze and measure the changes occurring on the Earth's surface.
Space technologies such as Earth observation can be used to monitor World Heritage sites, the World network of Biosphere Reserves and associated surrounding ecosystems.

UNESCO and the European Space Agency (ESA) launched the "Open Initiative on the Use of Space Technologies to Monitor Natural and Cultural Heritage of UNESCO Sites" at the Astronautical Congress in 2001.
The Open Initiative is a framework of co-operation, open to: space agencies, research institutions, non-governmental organizations and the private sector. It aims to assist countries, through space technologies, to improve the observation, monitoring and management of natural and cultural sites.

Space technologies have a multitude of applications for providing on-going monitoring of natural and cultural sites.
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One of the main goals of the Open Initiative is to assist countries in acquiring certain initial capacity to use space technologies for the conservation of their heritage.
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The Open Initiative – Young Generation works with partners of the Open Initiative to use satellite imagery to educate youth about the changes happening to the planet and inspire an interest in the conservation of UNESCO’s cultural and natural sites.
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Click HERE to enlarge the diaporama.