Brazil bets on technology to control Amazon. Every move was being watched from up in the sky, when the pilot of Colombian drug-smuggling plane landed at a clandestine air strip in the vast Amazon rain forest. The pilot got caught by a high –tech spy plane. A high-tech spy plane helps the police arrest a criminal with evidence and with no doubt. The Brazilian police arrested the pilot minutes later and confiscated 300 kg of cocaine. After this, Marcelo de Carvalho Lopes, head of the Amazon Protection System, or Sipam said, “We can't be everywhere, the region is huge. So we need intelligence to focus our resources," On the walls of one large conference room at Sipam's flying saucer-like headquarters in Brasilia, are the latest images of the areas worst affected by logging, taken with infrared cameras from Air Force planes. The images will be used as evidence in court against hundreds of illegal loggers. Currently, only 8 percent of all fines for illegal logging are collected, according to the environment ministry. The high-resolution images also show paths where loggers plan to chop trees, giving authorities a chance to prevent deforestation before it happens. By the end of the year, Brazil will have scanned 86 percent of the Amazon. With the high-resolution images it will gain an edge in law enforcement and conservation, analysts said. The problem is that the drug smuggling cocaine gangs enter from Colombia by boat instead of a plane to sell in Brazil or en route to markets in Europe.
4 comments:
The spy plane is a very useful piece of equipment. It is used everywhere. Did you know that the plane can also take infrared images which help the police in their court cases.
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn14960-eyes-in-the-sky-to-help-convict-amazon-vandals.html?feedId=earth_rss20
i think the spy plane is pretty useful when trying to track down illegal smuggling planes. but the spy camera can also be bad if it accidently tells the air force to shoot down a non-smuggling plane.
other than that it is good because people don't have to go into the forest and take the pictures themselves. that would be costly and dangerous.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=brazil-bets-on-technology
Wow, this is so popular that the US is looking into creating something similar to this.
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-4327623_ITM
These high tech planes are the best idea to be placed in action. More and more places are starting to rely on them just like you mentioned they can't be everywhere. I know that the US army relys on them everyday to find imaged of Vehicle Borne Improvised explosive Devices (IED) and roadside IED's.
Lance Corporal Peter, US marine Corps
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