KEY POINTS:
A spy satellite is to be trained on the vast rainforests of central Africa as part of a British project to protect them from illegal logging.
The £1 million ($2.6 million) high-resolution camera will beam images of the Congo Basin rainforest to a new ground station to allow Governments, non-government organisations and local communities to prevent the rainforests being lost.
The equipment, which can photograph objects as small as 10m across, will hover 650km above the rainforest to track illegal logging operations, as well as monitor pollution levels and help monitor agriculture.
A £1.5 million satellite ground station will also be built as part of an £8 million package of measures to prevent dangerous deforestation in the region.
British ministers hope the satellite camera, likely to be launched in two years, will also provide images for a £1.8 million mapping project designed to help the 51 million inhabitants of the rainforest to establish their land rights and prevent loggers seizing territory.
The new initiative will be unveiled at the launch of a global fund to back projects to preserve the rainforest, the world's second-largest tropical forest.
The forest covers an area twice the size of France and extends across six countries; Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of Congo.
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