The Regional Secretary for Science, Technology Infrastructures defended today in Ponta Delgada that "the Azores are increasingly closer to what is done in the developed world in the field of space technologies; we are even partners of this world."

José Contente spoke at the opening of the technical session on CORINE Land Cover Açores (CLC). The government official mentioned that "the path followed by the Regional Government in the area of space technologies is already visible with the installation of the ESA station on Santa Maria, the use of tools associated to these technologies, the reliability of results as well as with the best practices and public policies adopted by the Region to keep up with the European reality and participate in these future projects."

The CORINE Land Cover project aims to produce and updating land cover map for Europe on a regular basis, thus allowing monitoring of land use and the identification of changes occurred in land use within the European space. This initiative also facilitates the access to data from other regions that have joined the project. It is developed through the standardisation of contents and the acquisition of data on land cover map with the aim of ensuring consistent and compatible data to support the implementation of European policies.

CLC maps have been produced based in visual interpretation of satellite images for the member states of the European Environment Agency since 1985. Several maps have been produced for three different periods: 1990, 2000 and 2006; maps on land cover and use changes were produced in the periods 1990-2000 and 2000-2006.

CORINE Land Cover will provide updated information on land cover/use in European territory. In this context, the inclusion of the Autonomous Region of the Azores is vital for the project.

José Contente restated the importance of the Azores participating in this project as they are part of the Advisory Council of NEREUS, a European Association of European Region that uses Space Technology. The Azores are the only region in the country that is part of this association since its inception. One should recall that one of the operational goals is to encourage partnerships in European projects for the Azores in different areas: fisheries, agriculture, health, forestry, climate change, civil protection, among others. The development of these projects is based on the use of emerging technologies, particularly the use of space technology at a regional, national and international level.

The information provided by CLC Azores will be available through IDEIA, a project coordinated by the Regional Secretariat for Science, Technology and Infrastructures in the field of geographic information systems (GIS); the latter is a tool intended to standardise and regulate mapping systems.

The Regional Secretary believes that the Azores will continue to "use their resources, their potentialities and their intelligence so that the Azores may able to build a better and developed society where space technology and scientific knowledge will play a significant role."