tvis > An illegal mining of amber

An illegal mining of amber

Much has already been said about illegal amber mining in Polissya. Here the interests of business, local residents, government and crime collided. Thousands of hectares of mutilated land, deforestation and skirmishes, sometimes with weapons.

However, even in such conditions there are people who are willing to pay a lot of money for a license to extract amber, invest in geological exploration of deposits, pay taxes. One of these determined entrepreneurs turned to TVIS.

Detect areas of illegal amber mining.

The entrepreneur received a license from Gosgeonadri, developed a project for the extraction and reclamation of land, opened a credit line in a bank – everything was ready to start work. However, it suddenly turned out that his licensed site in the Rivne region is already under development. – By whom? “Black diggers” from the surrounding villages. How now to prove that part of the amber reserves has been stolen, and the losses reach tens of thousands of hryvnias?

TVIS provided the entrepreneur with ultra-high-resolution SPOT-7 and PLEIADES space images obtained in autumn 2015 and in spring and autumn 2016. The first two still have an undisturbed landscape. And on the last – all consequences of work of local diggers. After processing and deciphering the images, a map of the disturbed lands was drawn up, “digging holes” were found, as well as access roads for cars with motor pumps. Using GIS, the probable amount of damage is calculated.

We will note that it isn’t the first case when according to satellite data activity of “black prospectors” in the Western areas of Ukraine are fixed.

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