Finland
- Home/
- Events/
- Geo Week 2022 /
- Statements/
- Full Statement
Group on Earth Observations – GEO Week 2020
Statement of Republic of Finland
Earth Observation is taking the world in a sneak attack. More and more societal activities embed EO intelligence, but it seems like the general public and public institutions are only distantly acquainted to what satellite based observation can do for them. EO needs more marketing, challenges and solutions we have a plenty!
The Arctic is a particular area where EO action should be accelerated. The Arctic Council is at an pause as the ultimate example of international state cooperation struggling. EO should therefore be used openly to bypass the halt in official data exchange and cooperation. Individuals and organizations should be simply empowered to act for a better environment and a sustainable earth. EO needs to reveal where natural resource use or industrial activities is not sustainable and hurts local life. Finland is actively guiding the EU Earth Observation program Copernicus to extend its Arctic data sets, but is also trying to find ways for the fast growing New Space private sector to contribute its assets to this pool.
To maximize EO exploitation Finland is both in data as well as in software using free and open policies. We are close to a decade of having public sector data available free and open and for a few years most public institutions also make their own software available under open source licenses as a policy choice. We should adopt this principal globally and Finland is grateful for GEO for having promoted these principals since its beginning.
Earth Observation is inherently a system of systems and almost by definition there are no masters to this kind of a system. Acknowledging this, GEO should improve the way how single system operators can interact globally and GEO should develop a value tree that connects societal benefits to Earth Observation assets through the many value chains combining data in EO services. The SAON Arctic Observations Assessment framework developed in 2017 could serve as inspiration for doing so.
