[Hot-francophone] [activation hotosm] Hurricane Matthew response : Imagery/UAV coordination and support to local Haitian UAV capacities

[Cristiano Giovando]

Nicolas,

As you well know HOT's strength is in pre-event baseline mapping. We
have done some damage assessment and post-disaster mapping in the
past, but it's not easy and with controversial results.

That being said, I'm sure other responding organizations who request
HOT baseline mapping support may still find it useful to have high
resolution imagery of post event areas, although limited to the range
of a small UAV. I'm not in a position to speak for them.

Again - and I'm asking you personally, please - please let's avoid
confrontation, insinuations, and bring up past arguments. It's
absolutely not the time. If you care about Haiti and HOT, please try
to engage with this community with a constructive, positive and humble
approach. Long emails take effort and thinking, which now would be
much better spent in actually doing (mapping?).

Cheers,

Cristiano


On Sat, Oct 8, 2016 at 11:55 AM, nicolas chavent
<nicolas.chavent at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Blake,
>
> Yes Fred and the Haitian dronists on the ground have skills and extensive
> experience but little resources to keep up their work; this did not prevent
> them from doing what they are good at. This can limit the span of their
> action at a time where humanitarian actors need local capacities to generate
> post disaster UAV imagery as well as satellite imagery to carry out post
> disaster needs assessment. Support to their work can span from small
> logistics support (rides in UNHAS, helis, plane and cars). This is quite
> common to get such support in any sudden onset disaster responses when
> GIS/UAV resources (leading to high impact for IM and decision making)
> already undersized are rare, too rare.
>
> When HOT started its first field missions, we were exactly in the same
> situation as Fred. Skilled individuals (less experimented though) with
> adequate equipment, but with little operational resources. We did good.
> Without the above mentioned forms of support, though our impact would have
> been limited and the course of action for OMS in Haiti and in other
> countries different.
>
> With the above in mind, it's weird to read that the president of HOT US Inc
> stating that the only HOT US Inc support for Fred and this collective of
> local Haitian dronists is only a well known list of UAV groups and a pointer
> to UN OCHA. That's of no help.
>
> UAV are used in Tanzania by HOT US Inc in Development and Disaster Risk
> Reduction (DRR) contexts [1]. Thanks to multi years of UAV activities in
> Haiti, this country is no longer a terra incognita when it comes to drones
> and there is no such thing as "UAV missions in disaster zones with
> notoriously complicated airspaces" but an area where it's possible to
> operate and make the difference we ought to the Haitians and to the Haitians
> mappers/dronists who acquired part of their skills via HOT US Inc and OSM
> folks.
>
> Do we have to understand that HOT US Inc will not help with simple
> facilitation work with partner relief organizations working in Haiti, some
> of those orgs (ARC, MSF etc) having representatives in the membership or the
> Board ?
>
> Given where HOT US Inc comes from and ironically in Haiti, this would mean a
> lot in terms of the losses of our operational/organizational ethos and would
> raise questions about the reality of support/empowerment schemes to local
> communities or possible conflict of interest between members/Board members
> of HOT US Inc and other organizations.
>
> Best,
> Nicolas
>
> [1] : https://hotosm.org/projects/tanzania
>
> On Sat, Oct 8, 2016 at 6:42 PM, Blake Girardot <bgirardot at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Nico,
>>
>> As you say, you and Fred have extensive experience in Hait and working
>> with international partners in Haiti. Fred is actually on the ground
>> in Haiti. You and he would be the best to coordinate him flying
>> missions.
>>
>> This is not something HOT does, we do not coordinate or push for UAV
>> missions in disaster zones with notoriously complicated airspaces. We
>> rely on, and UAV missions need to be handled, by professionals, which
>> you and Fred are, so I expect you should be able to handle making the
>> proper arrangements and coordinations.
>>
>> I already suggested who to contact, UAviators, they have coordinated
>> UAV missions in disaster zones in the past numerous times in
>> conjunction with UN-OCHA. That is HOT's contact, I passed it on to you
>> already.
>>
>> This is all HOT can do, except eagerly anticipate the imagery Fred's
>> missions generate.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Blake
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
>> "Activation Working Group" group.
>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
>> email to activation+unsubscribe at hotosm.org.
>> To post to this group, send email to activation at hotosm.org.
>> To view this discussion on the web visit
>> https://groups.google.com/a/hotosm.org/d/msgid/activation/CABmB%2B%2BStS%3D8NJWqZH2fhnjMeGmq8cKMip9qkBhBWZucrhhh_Dg%40mail.gmail.com.
>
>
>
>
> --
> Nicolas Chavent
> Projet OpenStreetMap (OSM)
> Projet Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT)
> Projet Espace OSM Francophone (EOF)
> Mobile (FRA): +33 (0)6 52 40 78 20
> Mobile (CIV): +225 78 12 76 99
> Email: nicolas.chavent at gmail.com
> Skype: c_nicolas
> Twitter: nicolas_chavent
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Activation Working Group" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to activation+unsubscribe at hotosm.org.
> To post to this group, send email to activation at hotosm.org.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/a/hotosm.org/d/msgid/activation/CAFExRTG65Cm1k1TkQqxv3PB8X3czvPkc5cSKzq4%3D2Oanj%3Dob-Q%40mail.gmail.com.



-- 
Cristiano Giovando
Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team
cristiano.giovando at hotosm.org
http://www.hotosm.org