Why support SkyTruth? A Funder's Perspective

I work at the WestWind Foundation, a family foundation based in Charlottesville, Virginia, that provides support to non-profits working to stop mountaintop removal coal mining. WestWind has supported SkyTruth since 2004. Before coming to WestWind, I knew little of the technical analysis performed by SkyTruth. But in the past year, I have learned something of the destruction being wrought everyday upon the southern Appalachian mountains. Blasting off the tops of mountains to extract coal contributes to groundwater contamination and health problems, disrupts the lives of local people living with constant detonation, fills in hundreds of miles of streams, and destroys the ecological heritage of one of the most biologically diverse regions of the country.

At first, I wondered how a picture from space could possibly capture all the destruction, devastation, pain, and injustice that is caused by this type of coal mining. When I had the opportunity to view SkyTruth’s maps and images, and to learn exactly what their modeling and analysis could show, I was amazed. David, John and their team have uncovered and mapped the extent of mountaintop removal mining in the southern Appalachians, something that has never before been undertaken by government or industry (let alone a small non-profit). I watched, amazed, as David showed how the devastation has advanced over a thirty-year period, devouring a majority of the land area within certain counties in southwestern Virginia and eastern Kentucky.

Although the data and the maps are impressive, they alone are not what make SkyTruth’s work successful and engaging. The partnership between SkyTruth and Appalachian Voices is a truly unique relationship between science and the grassroots, and between data analysis and story-telling. Appalachian Voices has built a revolutionary website that allows anyone in the country to input their zip code and trace their energy utility’s use of mountaintop removal coal. SkyTruth provides the technical data and maps that show which mountains have been destroyed; Appalachian Voices provides the human stories behind the devastation. Both strategies are necessary to end this kind of ecological and community destruction.

What continues to impress me about SkyTruth is that this kind of behind-the-scenes advocacy is not limited to southern Appalachian coal communities. SkyTruth works to illustrate the impacts of natural gas drilling in Wyoming; diamond mining in Canada; oil and tar sands in Canada, Australia, and Colorado; trawling in the Gulf of Mexico, and the list goes on. What lies at the heart of SkyTruth’s mission is a deep concern for the planet’s shared ecological commons, and the commitment to bringing images of their destruction to the public.

SkyTruth's 2008 Board

Our fabulous SkyTruth Board lineup continues for 2008, with the election of Directors and Officers at our first Board meeting of the new year. This gives us the perfect opportunity to introduce a key part of the SkyTruth team to those of you who don’t know us yet.

David Festa continues as Chairman, bringing his world-class managerial, public policy and fundraising skills to SkyTruth. David currently is Associate Vice-President, West Coast and Program Director for the Oceans Program at Environmental Defense Fund. Under his leadership, his program has restructured its strategic plan, streamlined management, and increased its funding and impact. Prior to joining EDF, David served as a senior appointee in the Clinton Administration, working closely with the Secretary of Commerce on policy and strategic planning. His past experiences include work on a wide range of issues, including energy, clean air, fisheries, protected areas, and more. In addition to his SkyTruth and EDF hats, David is a visiting scholar at Oregon State University.

Dr. Elliott Norse, Ph.D., President of Marine Conservation Biology Institute, combines scientific expertise as a marine and forest ecologist with his extensive experience in policy and organizational development. Elliott’s many accomplishments over his 35 year career include pioneering the concept of biological diversity while at President Carter’s Council on Environmental Quality, and penning several books, including Conserving Biological Diversity in our National Forests for The Wilderness Society. In 1996 he founded MCBI to promote the science of marine conservation biology and encourage scientists to become engaged in the conservation of marine ecosystems. MCBI now has offices in four locations across the country and has played a central role in bringing the impacts of bottom trawling to the fore, as well as in establishing the largest marine protected area in U.S. waters.

Dr. David Shearer, Ph.D., is Chief Scientist with California Environmental Associates and specializes in next-generation transportation, energy and information technologies. He is an expert in policy instruments that catalyze market development for emerging technologies, exposure assessment of indoor/outdoor air pollutants, and climate change. David has worked with a broad range of private and public sector clients to manage environmental risk, quantify the life cycle impacts of human activities, develop revenue generation models for short- and long-term environmental strategies, and engage stakeholder groups in constructive dialogue. He also serves on the technical advisory boards of the Lindbergh Foundation and the Bay School of San Francisco.

Vikki N. Spruill currently is President and CEO of Ocean Conservancy, a non-profit conservation organization that promotes healthy ocean ecosystems through research, education and science-based advocacy. Previously, she was founder and President of SeaWeb, a non-profit organization that uses strategic communications techniques to advance ocean conservation. Priort to SeaWeb, she was Senior Vice President responsible for client management and new business development in the Washington DC office of Ruder Finn, one of the largest independently held public relations firms in the world.

John Amos, who many of you know through this blog, continues as President. Trained as a geologist, John has almost 20 years experience working with satellite imagery and other forms of remote sensing, and has led most of SkyTruth’s project work since its founding in 2002. Prior to founding SkyTruth he worked as a geologic image analyst and exploration consultant for Earth Satellite Corporation and Advanced Resources International. John has created a substantial network of conservation NGO partners over the years, who now benefit from the technical expertise and stunning images we produce to promote understanding of environmental issues.

Finally, last but not least (I hope!) is me, Amy Mathews Amos, elected as SkyTruth’s Secretary – Treasurer. In addition to being able to bend the ear of the President on a daily basis (wife’s prerogative), I bring 20 years experience working in environmental policy and science with the federal government, conservation organizations, and scientific societies. My current work as a consultant to NGOs and foundations includes policy analysis, program evaluation, and project coordination and management on a range of conservation issues. Beyond my consulting work and SkyTruth contributions, I also serve as President of the Board of Directors of the American Conservation Film Festival.

SkyTruth also benefits from several great Associates who help do the high-quality work SkyTruth is known for. We'll introduce them in the near future. Check out our website (now undergoing a much-needed overhaul) for more info on people and projects.

True Spin Conference

I just gave a presentation, "The Use of Advanced Technology for Environmental Outreach Campaigns," at the second True Spin Conference in Denver. This is a meeting of communications professionals from a broad range of public-benefit organizations, addressing issues like public health, affordable housing, social justice, and the environment.

I talked about SkyTruth's mission to understand and illustrate environmental issues using satellite images and other remote-sensing and digital mapping technologies. Of course, free tools such as Google Earth and Maps figured prominently, but we also discussed the potential to recruit people to actively provide us with "ground truth" -- photos, video and other information they collect for a specific facility, mine, gas well, or other place of interest. There were a lot of good questions from the audience of about 30-40, who were very engaged and politely tolerated my bad jokes.

I was able to catch a couple of great presentations. Karen Showalter of Netcentric Campaigns covered the latest online communications tools being used for public outreach ("twitter" was new to me). John Kelly of Morningside Analytics provided an intriguing look at interconnectedness in the blogosphere that used statistical techniques and graphical cluster mapping to show how the most-cited bloggers are not necessarily the most influential (so I take heart in that...!) Click here for the two-day program, and here to check out all of the presenters.

GroundTruth

Ground Truth: Information that is collected on location, on the ground, from a close up perspective, in fine detail. From Wikipedia: Ground Truth

Sky Truth: Information that is collected from above, with a broad vision, giving the big picture.

We at SkyTruth spend a lot of time working out how to give people an "elevated" perspective on environmental issues. Most of the time we do this by providing top-down views from satellites in space or from aircraft.

We often find the SkyTruth perspective illuminates new questions and identifies sites of interest that local environmental groups may be unaware of. Or we simply wish we had more local, first-hand knowledge contributed from folks with boots on the ground to complement and help explain our high-flying images to our global audience.

In these cases, we strive to augment our images with targeted "Ground Truth" for these sites. This may mean someone on the ground needs to go to the site with a camera and a GPS and take some pictures. Or it could mean a visit to the county courthouse to find out who owns the property, or when construction got underway.


One example is the recent work we did on habitat loss for the threatened Preble's Meadow Jumping Mouse in Colorado. In this case we identified dozens of locations where construction and development is clearly taking place - or already existed - within designated "critical habitat" areas. For each of these sites we'd like to know if the development was already there before the mouse was officially recognized as a threatened species (1998), or if it's been constructed since then, a very important distinction. Ground Truth could consist of recent and historic on-location photos, and documentation from the county on when construction permits were issued and approved. Concerned local citizens could provide this with fairly modest effort, if they know what to get and where to send it.

To harness this potential citizen-army of ground-truthers, SkyTruth is building a system to organize "help wanted" requests, publicize the needs, and collect and organize the responses. That, however, is keeping us very busy, and is a topic for another post...

Please share your thoughts and comments on how you think we should go about this.

SkyTruth Image Galleries

By the way, SkyTruth features an ever-growing collection of online image galleries that address issues like hardrock mining, oil and gas drilling, habitat loss, and pollution. The galleries include a variety of maps and pictures taken from public and commercial orbiting satellites, government aerial surveys, and out-the-window shots taken from low-flying aircraft (most of those aerial pics are provided by our friends at EcoFlight). And important ground-truth photos taken by ordinary folks all over the world that complement the high-flying SkyTruth perspective.

We've also created simulations to show what proposed developments - such as gold mines and natural-gas fields - could look like if they are built:
Browse the complete list of galleries here. Once you're in a gallery, click on any pic to get a bigger version accompanied by a descriptive caption; click on "Medium" or "Large" to display even larger versions, and "Original" to download the highest-resolution version available.

Please contact us (info@skytruth.org) if you'd like to use any of the pictures from our site. We typically grant permission for non-profit, educational and media use.

Welcome to SkyTruth!

Welcome to the new SkyTruth blog. We'll use this space to keep you up to date on what we're doing. And once in a while, to ask for your help when we run into problems we can't solve, or great project ideas that we're too maxed out to tackle.

What is SkyTruth? We're a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization based in groovy Shepherdstown, West Virginia, about 70 miles upstream from Washington, DC. But we see SkyTruth as more than that - it's also a noun (think "ground truth"), and we hope, a global movement to produce visual proof of our impact on the landscapes, habitats and environment of the planet to anyone who cares to see it. Our tools of choice for this mission are images and photos taken from above: from orbiting satellites and from airplanes. Our tools are "remote sensing" and geographic information systems (GIS), used to help people understand our changing world and motivate them to take action to protect and preserve the environment.

But a picture is worth a thousand words. To get a better feel for what we've done since we started up in 2001, start at our home page and take some time to check out our online image galleries.

We hope you'll check out this space regularly!