The overall goal of the GOFC-GOLD project is to improve the quality and availability of remote-sensing observations of forests and land cover at regional and global scales and to produce useful information from these data for application in land cover/land use management and research. Under a grant from NASA, START supports the participation of representatives of regional networks in developing countries and GOFC-GOLD Implementation Teams to relevant workshops and meetings, and facilitates data distribution and communication among the regional networks. This effort contributes to the program of the Group in Earth Observations. 

A notable new effort under this project is the GOFC-GOLD/START Regional Network Data Initiative. This Initiative capitalizes on the opening of the Landsat archive to free, web-based access, and is intended to: disseminate US earth observation data in regions where available distribution methods are not effective, compile regional and in country data sets relevant to land cover and fire observations and make them freely available, and engage regional expertise in global data set development, evaluation, and validation. 

A pilot group of data specialists from 5 regions of Africa is receiving training at the USGS EROS Center on data availability and applications, and will serve as focal points for data distribution in their regions. Future training sessions are planned for other current and emerging GOFC-GOLD networks. 

For more information, please contact: Kathleen Landauer, klandauer@start.org