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— M PRG A te re re SES
ISPRS
2000
This Congress marks the conclusion of his 16 years as a
member of the ISPRS Council. He served as Congress
Director for the very successful Kyoto Congress from
1984-1988, ISPRS Secretary General from 1988-1992,
President from 1992-1996 and First Vice President from
1996-2000. His travel on behalf of ISPRS has exceeded
more than 240 international trips!
As the first President of ISPRS from Asia, his strategy was
to introduce new approaches to the foundation of ISPRS
laid down by previous presidents. His major accomplish-
ments have been the acceptance of geographic information
systems as a discipline within ISPRS activities, the intro-
duction of ISPRS Associate Membership, the creation of the
ISPRS Young Author’s Awards, the Computer Assisted
Technology Contest Prizes (CATCON) and many technolog-
ical advancements of which seven have been granted
patents and two are pending patent approval; and he is the
author of many books in the spatial information sciences.
He has supervised many local and international Doctoral
Students in Japan and in Thailand.
He has received many recognitions, including Honorary
Fellow of ITC here in The Netherlands, Honorary Professor
of Wuhan University in China, Honorary Doctor of ETH in
Switzerland, and the Most Exalted Order of the White Ele-
phant from Thailand and more.
Clearly, Shunji has earned the respect of his international
peers and he is richly deserving of being elected as an
Honorary Member of the ISPRS.
May | ask the Congress to approve with applause the elec-
tion of Shunji Murai to Honorary Member of the Society.
Prof. Shunji Murai, my congratulations to you. It is with
great pleasure that | present you with this certificate of
Honorary Membership.
Filling the Digital Gap — Use of Geo-information and Decision Support
Tools in Sustainable Agriculture Development
by Dr. He Changchui,
Environment and Natural Resources Service (SDRN), Sustainable Development Department
Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO)
The Issue of the Digital Gap
With the human population expected to peak at 8 billion,
the new century presents greater development challenges
to various stakeholders in dealing with global environmen-
tal changes, such as those related to desertification, land
degradation, loss of biodiversity and climate change and
natural disasters. Unless we collectively take extraordinary
measures now to overhaul the Earth system, it will become
much disturbed and less productive.
Although for more than a decade, in particular since the
adoption of Agenda 21 at the UNCED in 1992, a number
of international conventions or multilateral environmental
agreements have been adopted and pockets of progress
have been made in several areas, policies and institutional
frameworks, technologies, methodological approaches
and effective mechanisms are still to be sought for sys-
tematic implementation of the Conventions and related
environmental agreements and for monitoring of progress
at various levels. The problems are linked to several
domains - scientific, technical, institutional and political,
but most fundamental is perhaps to take stock and
assess the Earth's conditions and environmental trends
and introduce responses that can reduce the vulnerability
and enhance the resilience of various ecosystems of the
Earth.
The current understanding of the Earth system by scien-
tific communities world-wide, in particular, of how the
climate systems and the major global cycles function,
such as carbon and water cycles, has made dramatic
progress in the past decade. To further study sustain-
ability and its background noise - environment, global
changes and associated driving forces, more concerted
and integrated efforts will be required for systematic
observation of the Earth system: its atmosphere, litho-
sphere and biosphere. Such an effort is also essential for
constant investigation of interactions between humans
and various components of the Earth system and for
monitoring of the impact of anthropologic activities on
the Earth environment. Traditional means of collecting
data and information about the Earth's environment,
such as land, soil, water and forest and other eco-sys-
tems, are under a serious challenge.
The advance of digital technology provides an unprece-
dented opportunity for data collection, information pro-
cessing, networking and sharing, which has a significant
contribution to make to the development of the globalised
knowledge economy, making economic development in
various nations more interdependent. However, those who
possess the digital techniques and its applications will be
the more major beneficiaries. Current statistics show that
about 8896 of Internet users are those from the industri-
alised countries, whose population is only 1796 of the
world total. The rich nations share the total world GDP of
8696, export market of 8296 and the direct foreign invest-
ment of 6896, as compared with the mere 196 shared by
these poorest nations. Without a united vigilance among
the world's policymakers, increased digital capability
International Archives of Photogrammerty and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXIII, Part A. A jam 2000.
