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3.1.Governmental stakeholders

Government, whether at local, regional or national scale, is key to the policy-driven use of global land observations, since governmental departments set the policy agenda. They program funding cycles to advance these policy agendas, identify specific projects associated with them and implement the projects. They also usually monitor the progress of such projects and often perform some level of post project evaluation. Land observations play a role at all stages, with the particular nature of the governmental intervention determining the form this takes – e.g. trends which set a particular policy priority, maps of pre-project conditions which help establish base-lines for a project, statistics documenting rates of change during the lifetime of the project through to reports and environmental profiles, which confirm that the project’s goals have been met.

As part of the policy-setting agenda governments have also generated a second stakeholder role for themselves, namely that of having to generate land observation information as a result of their own policy agendas. For example, almost all countries of the world established and signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change at the Rio Summit in 1992 with the policy objective of reducing global warming and coping with whatever temperature increases are inevitable. As a direct result these same governments are now obliged to report various pieces of information related to land observations to the UNFCCC’s Secretariat. The UNFCCC is only one of many such Multilateral Environmental Agreements generating reporting obligations.

Thirdly, governments are a key stakeholder as it is government-funded agencies (Space Agencies, Environmental Protection Agencies, Hydrological Services and the like) that provide much of the nascent capacity for global land observations - capacity from Earth observing satellites and in situ measurements alike.

3.2.International initiatives

Key international stakeholders include organizations that make up the UN System; FAO, UNEP, WMO, UNESCO and UNDP, among others, facilitate and promote international cooperation in order to promote respect for human rights, protect the environment, fight disease and reduce poverty. Their work involves setting standards for observations, coordinating observing networks, gathering and collating information, and, of course, analyzing the results. As well as a source of observations the UN System’s organizations are a significant user; global land observations, whenever available, are already used to help them develop their policy positions and their operational strategies, especially helping direct the use of investments for development purposes, such as the Global Environment Fund, UNDP grants and World Bank programs.

Furthermore selected UN System organizations alongside the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and International Council for Science sponsor the Global Terrestrial, Ocean and Climate Observing Systems (GTOS, GOOS and GCOS). These three bodies are also important stakeholders as they provide advice on needs, gaps and future developments of observations as required by the UN System, the multilateral environmental agreements (such as UNFCCC, UNCBD, etc ) and associated scientific entities (such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and key entities such as the World Conservation Union (IUCN).

3.3.NGO’s

Global NGO’s such as World Resources International, Conservation International, Birdlife International and the Rainforest Foundation and more localized entities are stakeholders that use global land observations to bring additional voices to the policy table, and who implement many projects and actions on the ground. Policy formulation, project planning, execution and evaluation in the non-governmental world also rely on accurate information.

3.4.Science

Global land observations are vital to improved scientific understanding of key biogeochemical cycles, for further scientific development of climate (and weather) models, and to establish scientifically based “certainties” such as agreeing on global rates of deforestation, biodiversity trends and rates of desertification. Scientific requirements for terrestrial observations have long been articulated especially at the international level by IGBP, IHDP, Diversitas WCRP, and the Global Land Project (GLP 2005). Profound changes are occurring in the strategic direction of global environmental research over the next decade with more emphasis on issues of societal concern, more emphasis on regional scales, emphasis not only on climate change but on many other aspects of global change such as human induced land cover and land use change, and a scientific focus on coupled human-environmental systems. The scientific community also develops innovative new approaches to the collection and dissemination of global land observations and thus as a stakeholder the scientific community is both a user of global land observations and a vital developer and producer of such observations.

3.5.General public

The general public has an interest in many aspects of global environmental change and indeed political developments reflect this. Although regional (European) in scope the UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (The Aarhus Convention) codifies the citizen's participation in environmental issues and provides a legal framework for access to information on the environment held by public authorities. Through these sorts of “access” initiatives the citizen becomes a de facto stakeholder in any global land observing strategy.

3.6.Private sector

The private sector has an established role in implementing government, NGO and internationally funded environmental monitoring programs. Their involvement in everything from satellite manufacture and operation to data collection, processing, analysis, education and training places them firmly as a stakeholder.