The UK Space Agency has spent £70 million with satellite companies to monitor for overfishing and other illegal activities in developing countries LUIS ACOSTA/Getty ImagesBritain’s aid budget is boldly going where only 536 people have gone before with the launch of the country’s first humanitarian space programme. The UK Space Agency has handed out £70 million to companies using satellites to keep an eye on illegal logging, overfishing and illicit building in developing countries. One firm, Airbus Defence and Space, has won nearly half a million pounds to take high-precision photographs of Dakar, the Senegalese capital, to help the authorities to keep track of construction so they know which properties to tax. Other beneficiaries include companies setting up emergency communications for natural disasters in the Philippines and Vietnam, monitoring floods and droughts in Africa and catching illegal fishing off Chile. In all, more than a tenth of the £1.5…

Source: The Times September 11, 2017 23:03 UTC