Palau is blessed with a wealth of natural resources. We enjoy clean air, clean water, abundant marine life, and healthy, productive reefs. Our stunning Rock Islands and majestic dive sites continue to draw admiration from around the world. But Palau’s wealth is not just found in its natural resources. Palau has also been blessed with a wealth of human resources and technical capabilities. The population of Palau is well educated and highly talented, and makes use of the most advanced computer and development techniques on a daily basis. Weaving these sources of natural and human wealth together is perhaps the most important resource of all: our traditions. Palauans maintain strong cultural ties to their land, their waters, and their history, and with these ties we strive to preserve and conserve all of our precious resources. This is not to say that Palau does not have its problems and pressures. Development pressure is strong and driven largely by economic motives. Balancing the benefits of development with the dangers of exploitation continues to be a challenge, but a challenge that Palauans are meeting head on.

An analysis of recent and historical satellite imagery collected over the past forty years was carried out for Lake chad in West Africa, the Sundarbans along the India-Bangladesh border, Papua in Indonesia, the Paranaense Forest around Itaipu Dam and Iguazu Falls at the juncture of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, and the Ataturk Dam and the Harran Plain in South Eastern Turkey to provide scientific evidence of environmental change taking place in these ecologically significant regions of the world. While it can be difficult to pinpoint exact causes of change to the environment, the report documents environmental impacts of development, tourism, globalisation, human uses, engineering, climate change and a host of other factors.