51 
The fundamental aspect of long-term sustainable 
development is based on the paradigm of technological 
innovations, economic determinism and physical 
constraints imposed by the environmental imperative of 
striking a judicious balance between ultimate 
exploitability and regenerative capacity. Evolution from 
satellite based mapping to spatial modelling has 
revolutionised the Decision Support System for practical 
use through Geomatics tools, thus providing natural and 
transparent computational support for sustainable 
development. Evolution and implementation of well 
thought out, long-term national policies and creation of a 
promotive international atmosphere alone can lead to 
such a development across the world, enabling the entire 
humankind to share the benefits of satellite remote 
sensing. 
Satellites cannot provide information on all the 
parameters related to forest change. A purely satellite 
based system may miss significant features or events 
which indicate ongoing and impending changes. Such 
knowledge is usually available locally where foresters, 
environmentalists, scientists, project managers, planners 
or even news agencies gather first-hand information. 
The problem is to insert such local knowledge into a 
broader context where it can be interpreted and linked to 
information at more generalised levels. Geomatics has 
made attempts to incorporate such unstructured and 
sometimes casual information in its systematic 
information gathering exercise. 
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