Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconaissance

ISR. That is what our work is focused on here at CICRA. There is heavy gold mining activity in the area around the station and conservation concession and some of it has actually encroached into ACCA property. One of the major missions that drones will conduct here will be patrol to locate new mining activity around the station and the re-occupation of abandoned mines. This monitoring is vitally important to the rapid identification of mining activity so that it can be stopped before it causes too much destruction. This morning, during our first flight here at CICRA, we overflew and mapped old mines that have been closed. This patrol was conducted to see if miners had returned to the mines and reopened them illegally. Here is what we found:

In this photo evidence of active mining can be seen, including mats which the miners sleep on in the center, the machine used to extract gold from the sediments at left, and, we believe, the miners themselves just below the mats in the shade.

This information allows for an almost real time response to new mining activity and allows enforcement to be targeted at active areas without having to spend time patrolling for the mining activity. This is only the beginning of our work here at CICRA but it is a promising indication of what our aircraft will be capable of.