Environment has been one of the first few application segment of GIS & Remote Sensing. This segment has also been confined to the large scale government projects, academic research and initiative by multilateral agencies. At micro level, there are number of initiatives taken by local agencies including NGOs to bring the awareness amongst local residents both in the urban and rural areas. How much GIS and Remote Sensing figures in these initiatives is worth thinking. Although we have all been curious about our local environment with specific reference to the natural resources, it has been limited by the access to the tool(image viewing), data(imageries and aerial photograph) and most important the training on usage of these tools. In this view it would be interesting to know how many local forest officers in the developing world (specific reference to India) use imageries including those from the archives to assess the environmental situation.

The answer to the same would have been depressing six months back. But thanks to the access to imageries (an RS expert would argue on the reference of this as photograph of an remotely sensed image), we are undergoing the process of community learning about the satellite imageries and their importance in environment. How else could be expect a Director (who is not a Geo-Informatics expert!) of leading government department in Thailand to talk of imageries and relate the same to the natural resource.  Editor