I want to welcome you all to this event unearthing solidarity global voices on mining justice. We're so glad to have each and every one of you here and particularly pleased to have our panelists and moderator with us tonight. I would invite us now to consider the territory that we are on. And perhaps you will listen first, and then we can invite you to add to it afterwards. We'll do a territorial acknowledgement and then an opening prayer. So I would like to begin by acknowledging that we are meeting today on the traditional territories of indigenous peoples across Turtle Island. I would like to thank each group each individual for allowing us to meet and learn on together on their territories. I acknowledge that I am on the territory of the dish with one spoon wampum belt covenant. I'm on these territories of the Huron-Wendat, Petun, Seneca, and most recently the Mississaugas of the Credit Indigenous Peoples. This here in Toronto has also been a gathering place for Metis, Inuit and many other First Nations peoples, historically and presently. We honour all that was here for thousands of years before us across Turtle Island. We honour the struggles and the lives of those who gave themselves for it, for all those here today, and for the ancestors beneath our feet and the land on which we stand. With our ears to the ground, we can hear them, an infinity of footsteps of those who long called this land home. The unfolding of bundles, the undoing of colonisation and the opening of this land to allow treaty to come alive. We affirm our relationship to each other and to the land. We acknowledge and pay respects to the Indigenous nations and ancestors of all this land. As we acknowledge the first caretakers of this land, I also situate myself in the Dawn Valley watershed, shared with a vast array of creatures and elements. And I ask you to join me in prayer. Creator God, I give thanks for each of the speakers that will share their wisdom and their stories with us today. I give thanks for each listener who will open their hearts and minds to new information, new thoughts, new motivation and energy. Thank you for the passion in this room, the passion for justice. And pray that your spirit will enliven that passion. That we will continue to work for the greater good of all. Creator God, we ask your guidance and your blessing on our time together. Amen. Again, welcome to everyone. And I invite you now if you want to offer a territorial acknowledgement or an introduction. You could do so in the chat. I want to introduce you to the moderator for our panel today. Kwiak is a lifelong champion for communities affected by mining and author of unearthing justice, how to protect your community from the mining industry. And I want to tell you a little bit about this book, it has been translated into three languages with an additional addition. And it's a particular forward for an African edition. Three of us from three different organizations, myself from Kairos Dean Deatlaw from Development and Peace and Johannes Chan from the student Christian movement, work together to bring about a reading group this winter, beginning in January. And we chose this book. Unearthing justice. And read several chapters of it through January with a group of students meeting on the U of T campus students and young adults and who were interested in mining justice. And so that forms the basis of our conversation today and how we came to be inviting these particular people to speak to you today. And so, with that, I want to tell you a little bit more of Jones history before I turn it over to her. Joan was the founding national coordinator of Mining Watch Canada. She worked there from 1999 to 2009. And she continues to do work for Mining Watch and many communities. I see organizing and research have been indispensable for all of us seeking mining justice in Canada. And Joan has long been a friend to both Kairos and development and peace and work together in many campaigns. So, welcome Joan, and we look forward to your guiding us through this panel this evening. Thank you very much, and welcome everybody to the webinar. Before we start mining, you're going to be hearing from three courageous and learned people about the impacts of mining in Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and in Canada. And we will be reflecting on the role that the Canadian government and our provincial governments are playing in these impacts. So, first of all, I want to tell you about the Canadian mining industry. It is a very important thing. It is a very important thing. Basically, mining is at the forefront of the colonial assault on Indigenous peoples. It is in Canada, and it exports these lessons in colonialism around the world. Mining is a waste management industry. It has a short-term benefits and very long-term consequences. The mining industry controls the discourse about it, shakes government law regulation and policy, and pays little tax relative to its earnings. The true costs of mining are externalized to communities, the ecosystems, and to the workers themselves. Mining cannot exist without enormous government subsidy. And we can put mining in its proper place by supporting affected communities, understanding and debunking the myths that the industry propagates, and by organizing efforts to change Canadian law and policy. And with that, I'd like to introduce our first speaker. Father Dario Basi is a naturalized Brazilian Camboni missionary. He has just finished a six-year service as provincial coordinator of his congregation in Brazil. Previously, he studied and worked for four years on the outskirts of the huge city of Sao Paulo. I think it's the fourth largest city in the world, with a particular dedication to defending the rights of children and adolescents. And before that, he spent 10 years in Mariano State in the northeast of Brazil. In one of the communities there, which I'm going to mispronounce, I'm sure, Piqua Acalandia, where he was a parish priest, he took up the cause of the communities affected by the mining and steel cycle. Specifically, the communities were suffering because of the Grande Carajas Project, the largest iron ore mine in the world, owned by the company Vale. Vale is, by the way, in Sudbury. He became the coordinator of Justices Nos Trilhos Network, a network of affected communities along the Carajas Corridor, from where the ore is extracted and exported from the heart of the Amazon. He is also Latin American Ecumenical Network, he is also with the Latin American Ecumenical Network of Churches and Mining, and an advisor to the Pan-Amazonial Ecclesial Network. Welcome, Father Dario. Thank you, Joan, what a good presentation, too much for me. And thank you to the organizers of this very important meeting. Sorry for my English at the beginning, I have to ask patients because my English is very little, but I could try. I prepared a PowerPoint to help myself and also some written things to go through my presentation. I am very happy to stay here with you and we believe very much on the importance of interconnection and network among countries. So let me allow me to share the PowerPoint, let me see if it is functioning, is it okay? Okay, so I'd like to start to present our reality in three steps. The first one is talking to you about some conflict situation we are facing in Brazil. The second step is to share how we feel, not just we know, we recognize, but we feel in our hearts, in our bodies, the resistance of the communities. And the third step is to talk with you about which kind of support we would like to receive and to interchange between Brazil, other countries, obviously, and Canada. So, regarding the first step, the conflict situation, I would like to talk to you, for example, about our friends, the indigenous Yanoman, with very much respect, the same respect you started with in this very strong prayer you made. We have to enter really with our, in this sacred war of the indigenous, and in the special case of the Yanomami people, we, as the images present us, we are really facing a passion situation. This comparison between this living, but very suffering body of a Yanomami indigenous person and the body of Christ in a very strong Russian picture. It's very strong, the similarity. The Yanomami leaders are weakened because of hunger. In the last years, 570 children at least died because of hunger in their land, in a land marked by malaria, the lack of medical assistance, and the contamination of their territories. You can imagine, in their territory, we have almost 30,000 of Yanomami indigenous people, and in this moment we have 20,000 illegal gold miners inside their land, and they are the very responsible for the degeneration of the territory. We can conclude that in the Amazon forest, mining has reached its limits, and it's seeking to invade more and more frontiers, sacred territories that we just have to protect. A second story I can try, I can present is about a Canadian company, Kinross. Brazil is the fifth country with the highest investments from Canadian mining companies. And a report by the Canadian NGO Above Ground denounced direct impacts of Kinross in Minas Gerais state in Brazil, on Afro communities, water contamination with arsenic, threats received by the local leaders, and a large consumption of water by companies. And also the tailing dams at Paracatu, the place where the company is installed, are vulnerable to fear. It is a gold mine. Generally we consider gold as a noble matter, but we can state that its extraction in the most of the cases is full of violence. The third case is from my land where I lived, as Joan was explaining for 10 years, Piqua, but you pronounce it quite well, Joan, Piqua is a region where we have the largest open pit iron mine in the world, and it is very inside the Amazon forest in the eastern part of the Brazilian Amazon forest. And beside the mine, we have all the iron ore transport system, because they extract the iron ore and they export it to China, to Europe. And this iron ore transport system, which is 900 kilometers long, is a railroad passing through something like 100 communities, indigenous people, Afro descendants, farmers, very simple people see this crossed by this railroad. And the impacts in this case are deforestation, pollution, accidents caused by the train that crosses. So we can say and conclude in the case of Piqua that mining not just marks the place where the ore is taken out, the hole, let us say, but is marking entire regions and condense their economies to mining dependency. The fourth and last case I will present to you is the case of Brumaginio, probably you heard about it because it's the worst situation we have to face in 2019.  It happened just four years after another very similar crime that the same company, Vale in Mariana, not so much, not so far from Brumaginio, provocative. There we had 19 vests and another river basin contaminated up to the sea. And nothing has been learned between one case and the following one. On the contrary, it was known that Brumaginio's dam was dangerous, but they didn't make anything to prevent the accident. Vale preferred to take the risk. The lesson we understand and the question we raise is how much our lives worth. If it is convenient, the company preferred to continue their business, taking any kind of risk and calculating how much, if it was the case, they will have to pay. Let us follow for a minute in silence, in a silent respect for the victims, the scene of this criminal collapse. Where do people find the strength to face this level of conflicts and this proportion of the enemy they have to combat? First of all, I would say from memory and celebration. It is very important for us and we find that spirituality is the root of resistance and it is a bond between the people and their territories. For example, in Brumaginio, every year on the 15th of January, the anniversary of this crime, we celebrate the pilgrimage of integral ecology. And every month of every year on the 15th day, a memory of the victims is held. And it is impressive, the local people's strength despite the humiliation they suffer. Another example of resistance is the popular mobilization. This is from this photo and this story is from my territory, Pikia. There, the community is claiming for integral reparation for the suffer violation of pollution and conflicts of the railway for over 15 years. And now they are achieving a collective resettlement in a region far from pollution, without the company's influence corrupting the community collective organization. In most of the cases, it's interesting how the companies tried to enter to divide and to seduce leaders of the communities to weaken their organizational resistance. But in this case, even if we have our failures and our weaknesses, we could avoid this kind of influence. And we could maintain the community sufficiently united to achieve their dream. Still, they haven't resettled themselves, but we have reached something like this 65% of the construction of the new city, let us say. The third example of resistance is the international alliance. That's why I'm very glad to stay here to have to know Joe and to have this collaboration with the organization that organized that prepare this, this meeting. In the case, one of the examples of international alliance is investigations. For example, popular movements are increasingly investigating the chain of products extracted from some lands to others. We try to show how the gold, copper, the iron ore used in the global north, and the products sold there often carry the blood of peoples or the ashes of the amazing. I want to say about the support from Canada. The first support we are asking to you obviously is solidarity and we are very, very excited in seeing so many persons interested in this kind of discussion. The world and life are more than good. So what we are needing is sensitivity, denunciation, people echoing the community's cry. We understand the importance of meetings like this. We understand the importance of you all keeping connected to development and peace to Cairo's to the students Christian movement. This kind of alliance going on not just reduced to a webinar, but a kind of commitment. The second possibility of alliance is dispelling the myth of money. Because it's very easy to fall down into the companies narratives for sure they have many money to make propaganda and to to to to to to to to design their narrative in order that people believe them. So please don't fall into their, their midst. For example, this kind of rhythm of mining is unsustainable. We can at all explain it and tolerate this kind of economy is killing. And it's not me who is saying it but also Pope Francis. This economy kills. This kind of economy this kind of money does not generate development, or at least develops just only only only a very few little group of people. So the very, the very important part is to support the self determination of communities to encourage their ways of life, and their kind of local economies. The third perspective of collaboration is about laws, as John was already saying in her introduction. For example, the due diligence. The laws in the global north that oblige companies to track the entire production chain laws that make big companies responsible for the partners they should they choose from the beginning up to the end of the chain. And also, for example, the binding treaty for companies and human rights. The fourth and last collaboration is one is an initiative of our churches and mining network, which is the divestment campaign. We try to show the connection among among the mining companies that cause violation, the banks and investment funds and our money. And it is a church campaign so we try to stimulate and to invite the churches the religious groups dioceses to give the first example of this movement of divestment, because generally they are supposed to be as one of the ethical references to the society so they have even if they don't have so much money, but their movement could be could propagate a thinking reflection to withdraw money from these funds that are feeding the deaths and the accidents and the nature. Okay, so thanks for your attention I hope that you understood me and I will be available for diary. Thank you so much Father Dario that was really really interesting and helpful and very moving. Our second speaker is going to be Loretta Williams from the Chilcotin nation in British Columbia. I'm she's proud member of the Henning one of the Chilcotin communities. And she has been a mining advisor a mining coordinator for that First Nation and she was one of the founders of First Nations women advocating for responsible mining which took on mining all across British Columbia. She's very proud to have Loretta here today and she'll bring home to us I'm quite sure how these kinds of issues happen also in Canada, and it's what these companies have learned to do in Canada is being exported and used abroad Loretta. Thank you very much, Joan. We've shared a lot of space together and you know it's still. We're still doing the same thing still the same battle as this back when. Again, my name is Loretta Williams. I'm coming from you on the unseated territory of the shishkwap. I live, I live here in Williams Lake. And outside of my community, my community is 200 kilometers away from where I live right now. But I have a long story to tell lots of stories and I'll just hit on a few important topics. I'm from this ice goatee nation. My community is the honey goatee and I was raised by my grandparents since a very young age as I could remember and within their teachings and within my aunts and uncles teachings and in my, my grandparents, my parents, you know everyone around me, we were taught to be very like you know respect our land you know because our land looks after us. You know, I come from an area where the waters are clean you can drink from the rivers, you can drink right out of the rivers and, and you know there's we haven't been there's no logging in our territory no mining. And it's because you know we've protected we've protected it and our grandparents before us and and our children will continue on after us.   If you're going to use one area one year you don't use it the next year you find another area to fish or hunt or or berry pick or or gather your medicines. Very traditional. I was raised by my grandparents who were fluent in in their language which is to tell cotton language and, and my, my grandmother never spoke a word of English, you know she was all English was never important to her. She would never, never speak it and but my grandparents, my grandfather was very fluent with the language so that was that's how I was able to learn a lot of what he had to teach I understood the language language very well, but I could not speak it. I did in my younger days but we've been through so much trauma that you know, through residential school system where our children were taken from us, or we were taken from our parents and put into homes. And it was a very traumatic experience and the many of us have lost our language since, but we have a high number very high probably the highest number in our territories. That still speak the Chilcotin language. So yeah I come from an area that is is very pristine. And we have the backdrop of the coastal mountains and snowcap mountains, clean waters, wild horses. And in a very proud people, you know, we're very, very proud we're very, very respectful. And, you know, we're, we're very nice people you know if you ever came to my territory you would be invited into for tea or coffee and panic.  You know we're just very kind gentle people. And, and when to seek them like to seek a mind's limited came to our territory. I was, I was a young mother back then and, and I was a natural resource worker, and, and I had attended one environmental assessment workshop was a week long, and I did not even know after that, that workshop didn't get meant and I, and I heard within the meeting that like they told me like that there was a mining company interested, they had been doing exploration in our territory and I didn't even know about that I was just I was just really green to everything about mining. And, but they, I heard that you know they're they're wanting to construct a mine I was like what is like what. I went home, and I started asking around and they're like yeah and then shortly after that to seek a mind's limited came to our nation, promising prosperity. And funny enough, that's what they, that's what they named their project as well, their first project the prosperity project, but they came into our territory and they asked our chiefs if we wanted to. To join them in investigating what this mine could be for our territory and for our people. And so we didn't really think we had a choice you know we didn't feel we had a choice, whether we could just say no right there, or if we had to go with the process and so we thought about it you know we sent them away and we thought about it and we talked to our lawyers and our lawyers said you know you have to, you probably should get involved because at this point. You don't know what that mine means for your territory. If you wanted to fight them you wouldn't know, but we're like we know what's going to happen you know it's right there plain and simple they're ready right above river. They'll impact that whole territory did you see that map of the mine that they're going to create. We know what it's going to do already we know what's going to do it to our people. But still we were, we were forced you know to go into this process that wasn't ours, you know. And so here we go we, we create this this agreement with the mine to go ahead and see what this mine could mean to our people in our territory you know like, get to know the impact, get to know the benefits, maybe it would maybe it would benefit us who knows, but we had to investigate anything to do our, our due diligence as a people. And so here we go and this is like 2004 and we went into. So this the mine that they're proposing was a huge open pit mine. They were after the gold and the copper within that area. And it was in most of the, the most of the most of the deposit was right underneath one of the lake fish lake. And like I said it was like it was proposed right above a river in our territory that that always had returning Chinook salmon and an area that was very high. And we knew that there was a lot of underground water systems through there and very valuable ecosystem you know it was it's home to the grizzly bear. It was a very historical site. It was like it trails used to go through there. Years ago when people used to pass through the travel from one area to another very rich in stories and we knew these stories but they were sleeping their stories were sleeping we never we never talked about them for a while. And so we did this okay we're like okay so we, we, we started this process and was to collect base baseline data. You know to see how see what the land was like right now so check, we had to we did studies on the birds and and the water reptiles, the four leg it's air quality you name it underground water. And we went through all that in a neutral way you know like we wanted to collect this information, you know, and also like how the how the mind would impact our people, the social impact study. And so here we go we just we dived right into it and it took us years I ended up being I ended up being that person who coordinated this whole thing it was ginormous it was huge amount of work. We had to hire people from our community to help with each one of those studies we had to hire the experts. And we made sure we told the mining company that we're not going to accept what they, what their studies were, we wanted to do all of the hiring of experts that we knew that that we trusted, and they let us do it you know. And so we did and you know we did our archaeology study and in that that area was so rich like there was grave sites there. There was, we found an old, an old pipe within the area and it was, it was from over one of our medicine people are medicine people used to gather in that area and that's where they went to go get their strength, their, their spirit, their power to be medicine people.  Very beautiful, you know, it had the backdrop, like I said, of the coastal mountains just beautiful, beautiful clean waters air everything. So, you know we did the whole studies and like, and I kept walking into the room and presenting to our people this is okay this is what we learned today.  And our people knew that that mine, that mining company or that mine would would impact us. And so we full out opposed it to seek a mind's limited got very angry. And they went away, but still we are still in environmental assessment process and we went through that process. We actually went through two environmental assessments and new prosperity the prosperity project and the new prosperity project. We had hearings in our communities where our people told stories how they were connected to the land and they basically begged that the government not to destroy it. We had children tell them like you know this area is very important to us and we do not want it wrecked. And, but we posed it and, and you know we came out on the other side luckily twice we had two oppositions like the government oppose that project twice. And we were very lucky, we were one of the lucky ones you know because we watched other other nations near us and we made friends all over the place through this process and we saw them. We saw the government approve minds in their in their territories which was really heartbreaking for us. And that's how we first Nations women advocating for responsible mining was was created and I was one of the founders. And we use that table to be able to support each other like it was a group of women who had very loud voices at at these mining meetings. And we were very outspoken on how those mine companies and how their projects were going to impact our people. So we, we group together, there was probably about 12 of us 20 of us and, you know, we help each other get through this workload, this unknown whatever gigantic giant that was coming into our territories. We supported each other we cried together and fn worm, you know, got us through many hardships and was always there to support because we had our experts and then we had our, we had our experts of the first Nations people who had been through this before us and. And then, and then we also won title of our territory the honey good Dean June 26 of 2014. We won title of our land, but it didn't include that area where the mine was going to be where we're being proposed you know, it was just outside of we won like we won area where we we own it lock stock and barrel, but we, it was just outside of the title area so we couldn't fight it in that way we still had to use our words, and you know we went through it. And in during that time, you know, like we saw the destruction of the lands very close to us Mount Polly mine breach happened, August 14, August 4 of 2014. And where billions millions millions of cubic meters of water and waste tailings went down into a lake and you know like I when I saw that I saw that my my worst nightmare had come true. One of the mines had breached and was in in the water system it was in a lake and it was coming down the river where our salmon were spawning at that time. It was the morning that happened was the exact same morning that we were supposed to go down to the river and fish for salmon. But we were scared to we were looking at the river and we were scared we're like, is this going to hurt us like how is it down here yet you know it was just so unknown. And many of us never did fish that river for four years afterwards because we're just, there was just not enough, we didn't have enough trust in their studies saying that oh it's okay you know, and to this date like that. The Mount Polly mine is still draining effluent into that into that water system into the Cornell Lake which is heartbreaking for us and as First Nations people. So today to see comments limited is still wanting to build the mine in our territory, even though like we have a full out oppose opposition to it. They bought up all of the exploration leases around in around like where they wanted to create that mine. We're still battling them to this day, which is just so unfortunate and so many stories to tell you and it felt like I had to rattle out one out but. My time is up so I just really would like to thank, thank everyone, thank Joan for inviting me here and always done and so solidarity with the people that are battling these lines, you know, it's so heartbreaking. So thank you. Thank you, Loretta for telling your story. It is absolutely heartbreaking. And that mining company just never goes away. And I it's, it's just something we're all facing and we're all struggling with, but you did win, but in those cases which was, I know it took everything you had for it and I really appreciate it. The next speaker is father, Jack, the Zumboo, who is a Jesuit, a Congolese and a specialist in conflict minerals, responsible mineral supply chain due diligence corporate social responsibility for mining companies, artisanal mining and strategic minerals and energy transition. His expertise also extends to renewable energy technology, especially in the areas of energy storage and transition technologies. He holds several master's degrees in governance and public policy of natural resources in international affairs, economics, politics and business law and agnation leadership. He's certainly a PhD student at the University of Quebec in Montreal, and recently completed the green justice speaking tour for the colleagues who put this event together tonight. I know that he's also a passionate advocate for the people of his, his home country and I welcome Father Shao to this talk. Thank you so much, John. I want to share my power bond with you. It is okay now. Yes, it's fine. Thank you for inviting me to share with you. The history of Congo, I can say the deal, the deal about Congo and Canada, yes, because I can say that Congo is one of the most richest country in the, in the world, but also, most of the poorest country. In terms of natural resources, we have all critical minerals for energy transition, but also we are facing huge impact of these kind of minerals in our country. So for me, this is very important to share with you some inputs. So I want to share my history is a tragedy. I want to show you just a tragedy of Congo now. Yes. So I want to share impact of critical minerals for green and clean technologies in Congo. About the green justice. For me, solidarity is very important. Yes. Solidarity is fundamental, fundamental is a fundamental value value of humankind. It is human cosmic and divine solidarity. It unifies the human and the divine, the cosmic and the real. And the visible and the visible, but also the solidarity. Reminds us that we are all made of the same cloth. With our fragilities and contingencies running through us. In the same way. In our universe. Our planet with all its biodiversity is also made of the same fragilities. Therefore, our strength then comes from our capacity to mutually support our human. And make and divine maturation as individuals, but also as community. For me, the concept of solidarity was very, very important for me. Because you are suffering a lot. And we need this solidarity. And the Pope Francis. Fratelli toti said that all of us, we are friends. Brothers and sisters. How can we support ourselves. And this sharing for me is very important to share with you what Congolese people are suffering. So solidarity is the ability to be touched. And to be challenged by fragility and suffering of others people for the suffering of our planet. The universe and the all biodiversity. In order to support them. But this already takes on its full meaning in the context of force. The context of people who are very important now. The context of vulnerable people. So those who are abusing in Congo. Human right abuse. Children evaluation. Women valuations. They're very vulnerable people. So they need our solidarity in a world where the strongest tend to let down the weakest. In a world where the richest tend to get richer on the backs of the poor. In a world where new form of slavery and abuse against children and women. And the venerable are still flourishing in a world where our common home planets and it resources are being over exported. It is worth reflecting on the updating of solidarity. So tonight, we attend to uncover these for what ends of the legacy from a mind justice perspectives. Based on mining in the DRC, and its impact on global green and clean energy technologies, and all the value value chains. I have just, I can say a simple question, I want to answer a simple question. How and in what way does mining for batteries or electric cars for solar panel for wind turbines for semiconductors for robots precision missiles space exploration. In short, for our social welfare and Western security, cause serious human social economic, cultural environmental and ecological injustices to the Congolese local communities. This is my question. So, as we are moving. We need transition to green technologies. So we need more and more minerals. This is my problem.  So we need transition from fossil fuel to clean technologies, clean energy, but how are we doing this. At the same time, we need also green technologies to support our transition. As you can see here. All I can say, all strategic technologies batteries for cell wind traction motors. Robotics drones. It. They're very important for our social and a security welfare in Canada and across the world. So minerals problems is a huge problem. Not only for money companies, but also for our way of living. So we need also conversion with the people, because we are final users of this kind of technologies. So we need conversions. Not only money companies, but also the people have to change. Our way of living. Because they're giving to us like consumers. But the issue here is the transition. How can we move from fossil fuel to green to clean energy. We need green or clean technologies, but how can we, how are we getting green technologies. Green technologies needs a huge amount of minerals. This is the problem of Congo. Because of the race of global north and China economies. To secure the supply chains of cobalt copper lithium of Colton. For robotics for fuel cell for wins. Congolese are dying. This is our problem. So from 1994 up to day. 10 millions of Congolese have died. Because of the control of strategic or critical minerals. It's our story. As can you see here. Congo is plenty of minerals. So our history is the is the drama of minerals. Since before our independence till today. And as it is with. I decide to study. Minerals mining economy, politics to know. How can we. How can I contribute to the peace for peace in my country. I came to minors to mining, because of the peace lack of peace and justice in my country. And the UN. Publish for report saying that. The control of strategic minerals is the roof of the complex in Congo now in Congo we have more than 200 rebel groups. In the eastern Congo. All of them are taking advantage of minerals. But the coal turn the cobalt. The gold. We here in Canada. In global north, we have the final uses of these kind of products. It can be directly or indirectly. Through our dish washes. Through our robotics through our solar panel through our missiles for our defense. As you know, all the precision mission missiles, they have semiconductor. They have semiconductors. And it come we produce germanium for semiconductors. So now Taiwan is known. Yeah, Taiwan. They have made semiconductor but. You need minerals for semiconductor. You need germanium and gallium for this. And they are now to Canadian money companies. Kiko Ivan over in Lubumbashi. The operating in germanium and gallium. In Zen income. So this is our history in Congo. The money extraction in Congo have a huge impact. On climate change land use water management, waste. Governance, health, safety and human rights. That's a problem. I can say that Congolese are not taking advantage of this kind of extraction. Extractivism in Congo. So the climate change is very challenging for our, our global. But many companies have a huge impact in Congo. Money in the IRC takes place both in nursery and our personal forms. Both forms of exploitation have very negative impact on local communities and countries. The first negative impact is their reality of conflict minerals in Congo. As I was saying, more than 10 millions people have died, have died as a result. For the control of rich means minus multinational. Automotive digital and arms companies are financing wars directly or indirectly in Congo. And now the consequence is the work of. You can see here women are working in the cobalt and copper artisanal activities. Before I came in Canada, I was working in Lombashi. In the center. So I was on ground working with these women to protect them because the water is very, very political toxic this water. Because all I can say in the south. Of Congo. Our corporate cobalt they have a huge amount of Iranian. When women are working there. They are serious health problem for our mothers for our children there. So I was working with them to protect to accompany them is the use issue for us in Congo. Because of the poverty, people are obliged to go for artisanal money. And they will sell the cobalt to mining companies and money companies will. Finally, sell here. So there's a link. There's the link between all these kinds of things. And it's the same. I am here with them. So I was in the ground. Here I am in the Glencore compounds near Glencore. And last August, I went to celebrate. To celebrate. I was very happy to see the green program. With Professor Dr. Beck. And also I went to see big nickel. I went to see also. I asked to them. Why are you doing things here differently than in Congo. It's the same multinational. Even kind of a celebrity. But in the Congo. It's not the same, I can say. You can see how people are suffering. In Congo. Another impact is the child labor. Here. I was asking to the children. I was doing my best how to get them out of this kind of things. The place of children is in the school, not in the mining. This is not acceptable for our cell phone. For our electric cars. For our batteries. We are exporting children upstream. So what do we need is solidarity. Not only downstream, but also in the all value chains of batteries. And green technology. You can see children families. This is not acceptable. This is our history. Our story. So it's the same. Soldiers are controlling. Minerals there. So what we need is solidarity. Because Canada is, I can say. A huge platform for mining. Around the world. So there is a link between Canada and Congo. Canada and mining companies are the first who came in Congo in 1993. I can say like London, first quantum, they are there in Congo. So 30% of mining companies in Congo are from Canada. And 70% and 50% are from China. But Chinese bought the asset from Canada and the U.S. And now the U.S. and Canadian, they want to go back again because of the race of coal time, the race of, of cover. So Congo now is suffering the race between global north and China income. But the control of millions. I can say that this issue is very big, not only for mining companies because Canadian mining activities here in Canada is about 4% of Canada, Canada GDP. So our richest here, our welfare, like Canadians, 4% comes from mining activities. And the Toronto stock exchange is, I can say, the huge platform in the world of financing, exploration and extraction of minerals in Congo, in the world also. And I can say 70% of Congolese mining companies, they raise funds here in Canada. The main aim is also to study in Canada, to know how can I do my advocacy here in Canada. Yes. So what we need is just due diligence. We can support due diligence here in Canada. And it can have huge impact in my country income. So what we need is not just due diligence and because most of the due diligence are voluntary. And the Congo in the Congo, we have now 15 years of experience of implementing due diligence in mining, because Congo is like a lab of all international initiatives. And it can change because of voluntary aspects of due diligence. What we need now is mandatory, mandatory compliance and environmental social governance compliance. So I mean, governing the transition is like governing the cacophony. Yes, we have huge interests. And what we need is just mandatory because voluntary due diligence that doesn't work, doesn't work. So I can conclude that saying that a maximum of mandatory rules is desirable terms of ESG and compliance for all value chains of transistor technologies, not only for downstream here, but also in our stream. And what we need also in Congo is access to justice. Like the German due diligence, they allowed some who are working outside of Germany, they can have the place for access to justice in Germany. And I mean, in Canada also, what you are doing in Caritas in Cairo's and students and the work of John is very important for us in the South, so we can know a lot about Canadian rules and then we can prepare the people in Congo to get access to justice here in Canada. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Father Jacques. That was very, very helpful and very, very interesting. I just wanted to say that one of the companies I've been following in Canada's electric battery materials and cobalt, which is processing ore from the Congo and just received a $51 million grant from the federal government under the critical mineral strategy. It's on the territory of the Tamag, the Tamiskaming First Nation, and they were never able to get involved in the project. So thank you very, very much. We have some time now for questions to answer some questions from people and if you had questions in the chat. I think, Joannis, you were going to provide us with some, some feedback. Sure. So the first question that I saw was asked by Stanley Lee, who asks how much influence is there from the global North and China re-mining and other energy projects, and I think Father Jacques addressed some of that, but if anyone. I think that was answered. Okay, sure. So I'll ask the second question by Kerry Richards was, are there any examples anywhere of a responsible mining operation as stewards of the land and a respecter of community? Is there any models to replicate or is all mining and impossible to exist anywhere? The implications of no mining shut down the green revolution requiring copper, silver, nickel, et cetera for electrical transmission. Are there books on the transformation of the mining industry? So, yeah, a number of questions I can repost that in the chat. Maybe I could just take a little bit of a run at that one and that is that most of the kind of changes that are needed are actually changed to much bigger to other systems. For example, if we're going to go with critical, critical minerals. A lot of what they're calling critical minerals are needed for the cars and arms and the space race, as Father Jacques pointed out. If we were to change how we did those things and instead of looking at lots of new cars looked at public transit. If we were to look at stopping the space race and probably having less arms, we'd be in a much better position. I don't know if one of the other panelists wants to take a quick stab at that one. No, we'll go ahead. Sure. So the next question comes from Stephanie Stringer. And it says Father Jacques may be about to answer this. But if not, in addition to regulation due diligence, et cetera. It seems to me that recycling and reclaiming minerals and metals is absolutely vital. In theory, it is possible to recycle metals more or less indefinitely, but often they are just thrown away. I wonder what the panelists thoughts are on this subject and whether there are any campaigns working on it. So do you have, do you want to answer that? Yeah. The question is very, very complex for me, because before going to recycle recycling, you have to produce first. I'm not convinced that we can do the transition with minerals. This, this, I can, my, my response is also my answer is also for the first question regarding money responsibly operation, operation in the world. I mean, I'm not, I'm not sure that we can do the transition. We can do clean technologies with minerals unless we change the technologies of extraction. Unless we change the respect of the land of the end the people. This is cost a lot for mining companies. So I can say that the more the mining operation is cheaper, the most. Our welfare is very good. And when mining operation is cheaper, like in Congo, with no respect of environmental, no respect of the people. We cannot support any more this kind of transition. Thank you. Father Dario has his hand up so we'll take him next. Thank you, Jax, and thank you, John for and thank you for the questions for sure john has a very, very good experience about that so she could explain about her book with very many answers to all of this. But I also want to add something in the same line of Jax, I don't know really any responsible mining operation. Yes, there are some efforts from efforts from the companies to spare water in some place to apply new technology in another, but it is very true that, as Jack said, that they applies the different way of doing according to the states where they are. So, if there are strict rules, they respect and where they are not monitor right monitor, they don't respect. So, I'm not very supporting responsible mining operation. I don't believe about it. Anyway, we, we are asking for mitigation, we are asking for integral reparation and we are also asking always for prevention. The mining zone, in some cases, the right to say no by some communities. And I think that transition could happen from uncontrolled mining operation with a reason regulated just from the by the financial interest to the essential And just one word about reuse and recycle. Yes, I think that the politics have to support this kind of economy, and they are supporting just extraction. So we have to decide in which way politics could pass forward to economy. But we also, and I feel here, defend that some kind of extraction have to be strongly reduced, for example, gold. The most of the gold is taken from a hole, and is put in another hole of the banks. It is very incredible. We don't understand this kind of money. So there are some kind of minerals that we have really to ban them. Thank you very much. That's a really good point. That would, in my mind include coal, uranium, and, and gold for sure most gold goes into the banks and into jewelry it's not used for anything else. As other questions. So I'll combine two Dean asks what are some similarities between the mining challenges for each of the areas discussed by our speakers, like in Brazil, Canada, and the DRC. And then I think a related question by Bridget, how cars can help Congolese people. There is emergency to help and ask Canada, China, US France to stop their deal. I was just asking about solidarity actions that other countries can take so if anyone has answers to that. Somebody want to respond to that. Anybody. Yeah. I mean, for me, the most important thing can be to support those who are documenting human rights abuse in, in, in mining operations, mining zones, and how can then also be very, very effective. How can then raise awareness in Congo and also outside of Congo in Canada. And because directly it's very difficult for them, but they need, we need collaboration between global north in Jews, and south global south in Jews, and then we can work together for me. I can say the sharing of knowledge, investigation, how to do investigation together, case studies together is very important for me then money. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I'd like to just say that. That getting control of the discourse which I think both Jacques and, and Father Jacques and Father Dario referred to is really important because here we follow we swallow so many of the myths of mining. The critical mineral strategies being the latest offensive from the industry. Global south exists within the global north has Loretta pointed out there's within for indigenous people in this country, many of the same issues are true and have been true in the past. And we need to be able to recognize it that that happens. I think we've got, well, I think actually Kyra's was and development in peace we're going to talk and student Christian movement had a few things they wanted to let you know about actions that we're going to be taken in the next few, the next few weeks. Can somebody is Shannon, are you speaking to that or, or Ioannis or Dean. I'll speak to it at the, at the very end we have maybe. We're at five minutes 20 we've got five minutes left so great thanks john. Let me just share my screen here there are a few slides. The first one just a reminder about Jones book and an opportunity to say thank you so much to john for providing a really rich text that motivated us who participated in this reading group to want to learn more. So thank you for the roots of the webinar tonight and just encourage you to find that resource. And we should say thanks to the other folks who've helped us out Canadian Jesuits international were really useful and contributed a lot and helped us connect with Father Jack. The Diocesan Council in Toronto for development and peace contributed to this webinar to sell lots and lots of folks which is such a great testament to building those relationships of solidarity. So thank you for those two things that we can do some next steps. If you're wondering, here are some specific mining ones coming up Sunday, March 5. There will be a virtual prayer gathering organized by the Toronto Diocesan Council of development and peace. It will be a hope for mining justice prayer gathering for about a half an hour at 7pm. So thanks in the chat and also in a follow up email so I encourage you to register for that and come participate. It is on the fifth because March 5 through eight is the prospectors and Development Association of Canada convention which is one of the biggest mining conventions in the world it happens every year here in Toronto so look at your email there are also more information about where to act locally in Toronto but also ways to participate digitally there's lots of activists who organize plenty of things around the PDAC every year. And we'll send out some information to the folks who are registered on this webinar. So the goals that we'd like to mention, two of which Dario and Father Jacques gestured forward when talking about due diligence. Bill C262 and 263 both are related to due diligence in some different ways. They are explained in greater detail on the Kairos website. The peace and Kairos both have been working with others in the Canadian network on corporate accountability to urge these kinds of bills and legislation to be passed, and the student Christian movement has been a big help there as well. And the other bill would address environmental racism, which has quite a lot to do with issues of waste and mining and many other things we've talked about on the webinar to so the three kind of go together, so you can learn more legislatively that way. There are two more events that are in the nearer future not maybe as directly related but still related in the way that all these justice issues are related. The first is on February 22 right around the corner, Kairos is hosting another webinar, Voices of Resistance, a celebration of black history and imagining futures, and there will again be registration information in the chat. And then on February 25, just a couple days later, there is another virtual webinar that is the campaign launch for development and pieces campaign this year stand for the land, which has a lot to do with land defense and issues of land, and would really invite all of you to come to those. I want to take this moment to really thank our panelists, Father Dario and Father Shao, Ken Loretta Williams for sharing their stories with us and for their commitment and passion and their struggle as land defenders, and to thank the sponsoring organizations of this webinar for the opportunity to get this information out there.


We have proposed three new measures of shared information between two random variables, y, z, and a third random variable, x. These measures are based on the idea of unique information, which states that shared and unique information should depend solely on the marginal distributions of the pairs x, y, x, z, and y, z. In addition, these measures satisfy an invariance property, meaning they are bounded by any other measures that also satisfy this property. We then compared these measures to other candidate measures of shared information. This article was authored by Nils Burtzginger, Johannes Rau, Eckhart Ulbricht, and others.


Thank you very much for inviting me to present. It's very kind and I think there's some useful connections here. So as as introduced, I'm going to be talking about the Scout to Hydro GNSS micro satellite mission. And I will kick off now. So the European Space Agency scout program is a it's a new initiative from ESA's Earth Observation Directorate. It covers small satellite missions demonstrating science with small budget and rapid schedule. And the missions are fully funded by ESA characterized by an agile and low cost development process to prove new concepts for future ESA endeavors. And the aim is to tap into new space approach. And it's aimed to achieve a launch within 36 months after kickoff budget less than 30 million. And it's accepting the higher risks and use of COTS components, reuse of existing designs that are used on small satellites. And the data will be free, full and open and delivered using a service based approach and Hydro GNSS was selected as one of the first two scout missions in February 2021. So just a bit about how the path to selection so ESA solicited the scout bids in 2019 and we met together at a GNSS reflectometry workshop and put together the team and the first concept in May 2019. And ESA received either 16 or 17 varied proposals in August 2019 these were large proposals hours was about 800 pages so there was a lot to sort through and they were in all kinds of different subjects. Four of these concepts were down selected including our Hydro GNSS. And then there was a study run for those four concepts from January to August in 2020. And we presented to the ACHIO advisory committee of scientists in October. And then the scout missions were announced. Scout one announced in December 2020 and scout to announce February 2021. Hydro GNSS was selected as the scout to. We have quite a large team in Hydro GNSS and we're working closely with European Space Agency who have their own range of experts and program management as well. SSTL, most of you will have heard of us with small satellite company been going for a long time, and we are providing the payload platform and ground segment. In this team Sapienza University of Rome, working in soil moisture end to end simulator, IEC on working on the GNSS signal processing and the inundation, finished meteorological Institute, working on the freeze Thor state tour of Agata University is working closely with Sapienza on the simulator and the surface interaction simulation. The GNSS is working on the CNR is working on the forest biomass. And we also have partners, National Oceanography Center, who have experienced ocean based calibration, University of Nottingham, helping with the GNSS instrumentation and signal processing. And joining us later will be technical University of Vienna participating in the data fusion study and we also have a science advisory committee that brings further expertise. The best reflectometry is, it's using reusing signals that transmitted by navigation satellite systems, including GPS and Galileo. There's over 100 sources of these L band signals in orbit. And what we're doing is we're picking up the forward reflection so it's kind of by static radar. And early concepts led to key in orbit demonstration on tech demos at one with COI and UK SA funding. And then after that we started receiving support from ESA, and the work on TDS showed the sensitivity to ocean wind and wave sensing see ice extent ISIS concentration, and now land which is being addressed by hydro GNSS. In early work. The key demonstrations were UK DMC, which first showed that it was possible TDS carried many carried it actually started processing on board. And then that enabled the NASA sickness where we provided the payloads to eight satellites. And that really has paved the way for GNSS reflectometry. There's a small demonstrator called one that we're operating at the moment and then hydro GNSS will be going up in 2024. So astrological knowledge as as everyone realizes is very important to humans. It's a vital for climate, weather, life on Earth, and is present on or in the land and form of soil moisture wetlands rivers snow and ice and vegetation. The World Economic Forum identifies land water related issues as amongst the greatest challenges facing the population for the future. And this research is vital for soil moisture for permafrost to do with emissions biomass carbon stock and wetlands for methane emissions again and biodiversity. And models need measurements for understanding and predictions and planning for the future and tackling climate change. For climate, often Earth system models are used and for weather forecasting numerical weather prediction, all benefit from assimilating real measurements. Scout Hydrogen SS targets, land parameters linked to essential climate variables. So the global climate observing system specifies 54 essential climate variables for observation for climate and 60% of these can be addressed by satellite data. And so the, the targets that we're going for soil and moisture biomass permafrost and inundation are very closely linked to ECVs. And the mission uses GNSS reflect on a tree which is a novel complementary and unique sensing technique. And it addresses a shortage in L band measurements. And now I'll show a video which gives the concept. Apologize if it's a little bit stuttery but I'll give you the idea. So this is taking measurements off permafrost the active layer biomass soil moisture and wetlands and taking measurements of all these things. And it's done as the signals come from GPS and Galileo constellations as towards 30. And these signals are being broadcast and we're able to pick up reflections and they manifest as delay Doppler maps as shown in the bottom right hand corner and it works over all weather it works over clouds. And it we can pick up signals over land of ice over water and the targets that for hydrogen is going for is soil moisture wetlands biomass. And the freeze thrall layer the active layer above permafrost in particular. But it can also be used for measuring ice extent and wind speed over the ocean as secondary products. So the original concept was two satellites and when the two satellites build up their measurements over time, it gradually covers in a quasi random way with the reflections cover the earth in quite densely over every every 15 days. So this is a video representation of hydrogen SS, and then back to the slides. So looking at each of these four variables that we're targeting, and looking at the evidence. This is soil moisture. We're really lucky to have the the sickness measurements that have provided the basis for the evidence. So if you look in this plot on the left you've got the measurements from the SMAP satellite, NASA SMAP soil moisture satellite, and then you got the measurements from the Cygnus and Cygnus was designed to target hurricanes over the ocean, but they found that it could take measurements over land and it's been used. You can see here to compare against SMAP and it compares very favorably. It's around 1.5 dB sensitivity for 10% soil moisture resolution is around tense two to seven kilometers resolution gets finer as the signal becomes more coherent or flatter surfaces. And it's, they have been developing a soil moisture based on just on the low latitudes that Cygnus can access using GNSS reflectometry measurements. Now they need higher latitude coverage and dual polarization would help detangle the different effects. Here's the evidence for inundation wetlands. So on the right, you can see the plots being made by the SMAP passive measurements. This is a passive microwave radiometer L band, and then the active measurements and much higher resolution but you can see with the Cygnus measurements the GNSS reflectometry. It actually penetrates the, the vegetation. And so it can pick out the flat surfaces because it's forward scatter, rather than back scatter, reflect radar in effect. It's able to pick out the flat surface that kind of amplified. And so you can see all the tributaries of the Amazon basin, which are visible in with other techniques. And we are planning to add a coherent channel that include increases the resolution and allows greater amplification of these weak signals. So this could be valuable for river width, lake altimetry and bank inundation overflowing under forest canopies and mangrove forests can be measured, the water content can be measured underneath jungles. This is just biomass. So when you have a reflection of a signal then the vegetation attenuates the signal. So it's difficult to separate it out, but that information is there. And it's been shown that it doesn't saturate as L band backscatter does. So by using longer integration times it highlights that dependence. By using artificial neural networks people have been able to recover the, the biomass maps. Quite well across the globe. Well, only not across the globe because we've only got sickness, lower latitudes, but it's it hydrogen SS will cover the whole globe. We've been getting respectable results from the biomass. And then the evidence for soil freeze Thor, and this is something that sickness was unable to reach because of the lower latitudes but TDS was able to reach the high latitudes and so we have evidence there. And what happens is the frozen soil changes the permittivity. And so you get a very different reflection once when it freezes and thaws. And it seems to give a high similarity to smack measurements so you can see the plot there on the right that the, the TDS measurements are in green, and the smack freeze Thor product is in red. So, very closely correlated. So the science objectives of hydrogen SS are to exploit L band satellite navigation signals to monitor earth's water systems to a final resolution and derive measurements linked to ECVs defined by G cost. And so the parameters that we target are borrowing from the ECV requirements. And so the soil moisture. We're aiming for 0.04 meter cube per meter cube inundation 90% class classification soil free store 90% classification accuracy, and forest biomass we're aiming for 20%. And the resolution is is is maybe not as high as biomass once but it's, it's valuable for. It's the, it hits the requirements for soil moisture inundation soil free store. We get we have a sort of requirement 25 kilometers but as I said when the surface that you're measuring goes flatter than you see a final resolution. And so we can see as good as one kilometer under certain circumstances. And we're also targeting ocean wind speed and ice extent which has been demonstrated with TDS and sickness. And we will also make the delay Doppler maps available at level one timeliness is 31 days standard and then we're aiming for seven days goal for faster service. And for the longer term we have a view towards less than 24 hours. The coverage is 80% of the globe in 30 days. And we've captured this information in the mission requirements document. Sorry to interrupt. Is there one of those zoom closed caption notifications on your screen many charts. Oh, is it blocking out the top. I wonder if I can make it disappear. There isn't a next I've moved. I might be able to move it. Is that better if I do that. It is a little better it's just cutting off the very top of the title. I think it's probably done now I think it's gone. Thank you dragged it out the way which means that I can no longer control my sharing. But anyway, good. It's good to have feedback that you're still there and listening to me. So hydrogen assess addresses the niche in applications. So here's a plot showing the temporal and the spatial resolution. And you can see the different areas where soil moisture is valuable. And hydrogen assess a single satellite is getting resolution maybe around 10 kilometers maybe slightly better. And then we can improve the resolution by including the coherent resolution where we get down to maybe as good as one kilometer. And then by adding more satellites, it improves the temporal. And so the hydrogen assess plus would be where we have a number of satellites will get down to daily coverage. That's the context for hydrogen assess with respect to other satellites so I think many people will not be aware of SMAP and SMOS. Isis Moss mission and NASA SMAP mission have been highly valued satellites for measuring soil moisture and ocean salinity in the case of SMOS. But both of them are past their design lifetime. And we, we don't know how long they're going to last SMOS has been up since 2009. So there isn't a direct replacement for them. So people are valuing them very well and long may they last but there may come a time when they're no longer around. So there is a plan for a satellite in the, in the further future. One of the components high priority missions is called Sima and there's also Roselle. But that's 2026 and realistically, it could be quite a bit later than that. So there is a gap coming up potentially in soil moisture. So I think technologies I think part of the reason why there aren't follow ones for SMOS and SMAP is because they're quite big and expensive and they are highly valued as I said, but SMAP was one ton and $1 billion. And so it's not quick to justify more of those. So when you compare GNSS reflectometry technology, the hydro GNSS satellite 65 kilograms, and the budget 30 million is, is covered to craft, and probably you'd need about a craft to cover the match the SMOS coverage. So we're talking about much, much cheaper approach. And it's much more sustainable it's something that could be topped up and continued. If, if larger satellites can't be justified if it can be justified it's a very complimentary measurement. It's different technique to these other radiometry and radar methods. So the GNSS are measurements. UK DMC three was a secondary experiment we stuck it on the satellite was an optical satellite. We just grabbed intermediate frequency sample data, 20 seconds at a time, and we got about 60 collections. So it really wasn't very much data but it was enough to show that reflectometry work that the signals were strong enough. And these incredibly weak signals bounced off the surface of the earth, and then picked up from space, they could actually be used to detect geophysical imprint. And so that led on to TDS one, which was funded by instruments funded by CUI and UK space agency funded put funding in towards tech demos at one. And that led to an instrument development that was able to generate these measurements on board in real time. And for reflections at once. And that TDS generated this data for continuous delayed op-la maps and we did raw data collection at two minutes and dot one is a very small opportunistic experiment that's running at the moment and that is running the delayed op-la map on the new technology. And it's got less capability for storing raw data. And then we have Hydro GNSS. And that's going to be an upgraded version of the SGR Resi it's going to have 16 channels. It will be able to do dual frequency to your polarization and delayed op-la maps plus coherent channels running at the fast rate, and typically 60 seconds will be sample of raw data. And it will have capacity of up to 15 minutes. So the established GNSS reflectometry approach as used on TDS and sickness was using reflected power diffuse unipolarized measurements for soil moisture, but then when we add these other capabilities we're adding Galileo signals. We're adding polarization information, and we're adding the coherent channel, and then we're adding the second frequency. All helps to separate out these different parameters, the soil moisture wetlands, and the roughness vegetation can be used these new measurements to help separate them out. So in terms of measurements in this diagram the ones with the bread asterisk are the ones which have been measured before by TDS. And the green ones are the ones which are being added to with Hydro GNSS. So you can see we're adding Galileo we're adding coherent channel we're adding L five we're adding the opposite polarization. And we'll have the data to support that that and we'll have a raw sample data typically 60 seconds for research purposes at both frequency bands so there's a lot more data available. But it should be recognized that the fundamental science cases based on the left hand circular GPS and Galileo reflections. So, the approach that we're using is to target those using a zoom transform correlator to generate delay diplomats that's the same way we did with TDS and sickness. But we're adding Galileo signals and increasing signal to noise by combining and experimenting with longer integration times, counting for secondary and database so that we'll get better signals and noise. So we're adding a coherent channel, where we have a single pixel which is sampled much much faster, and it gives a complex value so we've got the amplitude in the phase as well. And so that will give the that will exploit the resolution potential. And then we have dual frequency and dual polarization which are a bit more adventurous. So we're picking up a wide band signals and the dual polarization. So that calls for higher sampling rates. We're using the same set TC approach. We're optimizing the delay Doppler map settings, according to the code. And then operational mode, we will normally collect delay Doppler maps for occasional collections of level one a. So these are going to feed into the data levels. So the level one a and B are going to be delay Doppler maps and then level two other products that people, the users will want, which is soil moisture is etc. And then there will be some integration into grid and monthly maps for level three. So few words about calibration I won't go into great detail in this but what we're doing is we're measuring the amplitude of the reflection of the surface. And what we're trying to do is to measure the reflection coefficient at a specular point. Or we're measuring the radar cross section if, if it's a diffuse scattering area, which is a Sigma so it's gamma or Sigma, they're very closely related. And so we need to be able to measure a reflected signal but we also need to know what the incident signal is so there's two halves to it. And the calibration is addressing those to try and make sure that we are measuring the reflected signal. And we know what the incident signal is. And so there's different techniques and we have different calibration activities we have a black body load that allows you to measure what the noise gain gives you. And then we have targets over the ocean and over the Antarctic that we can use to help calibrate. And the other thing we're trying to calibrate is the antenna patterns because that affects the measurement, the antennas patterns both on our receive side, and on the transmits GPS or Galileo transmit antenna patterns. And if, as people have found that the more they spend on trying to correct these things, the better and better the measurements get. So in terms of the receiver power, we check against the black body load and Antarctic target. And then we look at some of the second order effects such a bit distribution. We apply that to the coherent and dual frequency. And then for the transmit power, we can either use a model or we can use ocean reflected signals, or we can use direct signals picked up by hydrogen assess itself, and then adjust for that to retrieve the particular point vector. And there's new challenges though because the second frequency we won't necessarily have the direct and ocean reflections, and the opposite polarization. Again, we won't, it won't be so easy to use these techniques so we do have challenges ahead of us with the calibration. And then it this leads on to the inversion techniques the ATB days are being developed algorithms are ethical baseline that describe how the level two products are being generated. I won't go into detail here this just to say there's a baseline inversion using the measurements we know and then advanced techniques that are using the techniques that the measurements that are brand new. So we have the process of going through the measurement, the calibration, the validation, and then the passing to the users. And so we have to start thinking about how we're going to validate these, the test sites, the simulations, and the data sources. The best approach to calibrate. We have a target to try and achieve preliminary validation within six months after launch. Yeah, just mentioning again the challenges that we face with the new measurements. We've got good confidence with the L1E1 LHCP, but the new measurements L5E5 and the opposite polarization. We expect challenges and we will continue to work on these and collaborate with land and air campaigns to validate our approaches. So just a couple of words on the end to end simulator it's an important part of the project is taking a lot of our time up, but it's, it's already showing its rewards. ESA's approach is to make sure that we're able to show what's called scientific readiness level five. And that means that we have an end to end simulator in place, and the models can be used to model the reflections and it helps us understand the error terms. It's allowing us to develop and test our payload ground segment PDGS, which is quite complex because we have all these processes. And we can either use data that simulated from the HSA the simulator, or we've got data from TDS one and dot one which we can use to pass through the system. And the level two processes are provided by our science partners, and we're also working with science partners on the level one with some of the calibration activities. And then moving on to actually how do we implement this, this mission, and we've talked about the data. So how do we implement as a mission. So we have a payloads that's a new instrument that's based on the ones that we flew on TDS one and sickness. We got a 13 dbi dual polarized dual frequency antenna, and it's compatible with GPS and Galileo it's reconfigurable in orbit so it will support new GNSS our measurements. It comes about 65 kilograms. It's being designed for a two and a half year operational life plus a two year extension. So it's, it's designed for five years plus. It's an agile platform it's got star tracker attitude accuracy and Zenon propulsion so we can phase satellites. Dual redundant expand 200 megabits per second, downlinked via Svalbard so we have ample capability to download data we can. We've got much more than we need in terms of that capability. We have payload data ground segment in in Guilford based upon the processing that we did for TDS one which is presented to users at the merbis website. SSTL is the prime but we're working closely with science team members. And SSTL will be opera running the operations and data product service delivery. We're running the launch and managing launch campaign. And there is an option for an identical second satellite to enhance the scientific return. We're making the case for that at the moment. The pictorial guide to the steps the way that the program is broken down into reviews. And so we are going through the key program gate reviews. At the moment we're sort of in the middle of a chart around PDR and we're working on the end to end simulator SRL five, and we're beginning to produce hardware. So come February we start integrating the satellite and then August next year. The satellite goes through environmental testing. So EMC and thermal vacuum vibration. And then we do the final end to end testing of the of the satellite before it's shipped out for the launch campaign. We haven't got the launch date agreed but we are working to around the August 2024 timeframe August September. We could be slightly earlier. So we're in launch negotiations at the moment. And then launch roughly September 2024 and then commissioning six months. And then we released the data under an operational service six months after launch. We're just to show some of the progress that's going on that the hardware is beginning to appear. We've got detailed designs for the antenna panel being manufactured now. We've got low noise amplifiers that arriving the building literally today. The engineering models. And the SGR Resi engineering model has been operated. The last two or three weeks. And we're beginning to get delayed up the maps using our new signal processing techniques as well. So to I'm coming towards the end of the presentation now, and just something that we have been learning as we interact with the scientists our team members. And the science advisory group is just that there is a pressing need for soil moisture sensing scientists meteorologists and others are increasingly using global soil soil moisture measurements from space. So accurate weather forecasts are increasingly dependent on soil moisture measurements, particularly over large land masses. And soil moisture is needed for flood warning services and agriculture subsidence permafrost sensing climate modeling. And ESA SMOS and NASA SMAP satellites are already providing soil moisture through passive L band radiometry measurements and these measurements are widely used. But both satellites are past the end of their design life. And there's no immediate replacements. The large satellites in particular SMAP had a six meter antenna, which makes it quite vulnerable up in space, and the mission cost $1 billion. So they are hard technologies to sustain for the future. And so, but there is a recognized urgent need for continuity of their services and GNSS reflect on three years increasingly recognizes an alternative technology to microwave or idiometer. It's lower cost to achieve the same coverage, and it is achieving higher resolution, but the measurements are different. They are forward scatter measurements. Different to radar different to radiometry says providing some unique benefits in including the ability to sense under vegetation. So, the ESA scout mission currently we're building one satellite and that's proving the technology and the delivery of the science. But a follow on constellation would provide the global temporal coverage as equivalent to SMOS around update every three days, but hasn't improved resolution of better than 25 kilometers. So we see the future is to ease a scout missions we are working on the argument for the second scout mission. And augmented by a follow on constellation of six satellites which will give eight satellites covering the whole globe. We had a workshop in February in 2022, just just a couple of months ago, and we presented the mission, and our scientists presented the, the level two processes, but we also had participation from the data users. People from Met Office, ECMWF Copernicus climate change service and the ESA CCI there's a video available of the workshop online. And the users identified hydrogen assessors, potentially filling a valuable role of providing continuity for SMOS map and offering new forwards scatter measurements, valuable for a central climate variables. It was in particular Met Office that highlighted the importance of fast delivery of data. Obviously for weather forecast and flood sensing, but also pointed out that if, if it can be adopted by the meteorological users then it will be adopted for climate sensing as well. And GNSS reflectometry it has the lower cost robust robust technology it's a sustainable approach, and it addresses the future soil moisture needs. So the original science approval from the advisory committee at you in 2020 was for two hydrogen assess satellites. But we have funding for what single hydrogen assessed light, and that enables the GNSS offer than sensing. It enables all these innovations that I've been talking about and it's, it's good for capturing the slow dynamic hydrological and biomass processes, especially at the higher latitudes which are obviously very important. And but there is this option for a second hydrogen assess satellite, which actually fits within the scout envelope. And if that is enabled that we can build this efficiently using two satellites, which can be launched together phase at 180 degrees, and, and this can be done very efficiently we've we've already ordered the parts. It's possible to do this at a relatively low cost delta to what we are building at the moment. And two satellites offer significant advantages it sets the framework for the constellation, the orbit phasing cross satellite calibration of measurements. It doubles the coverage the second satellite improves the coverage from 30 days to 15 days and, in fact, statistically the the the mean revisit time is a lot better it's 3.8 days for one satellite but then it improves to better than three days for two satellites. The overall monitoring resolution of the dynamic processes improves significantly soil moisture inundation pre store transition in permafrost forest disturbances ice, all better sample with two satellites and improves the scientific return. So concluding my presentation. This uses GNSS reflectometry to target key variables soil moisture inundation free store and biomass and hydrogen assess observes a high latitude forests and disturbances where the ether biomass explorer is is unable to operate. So it's a good complement to the biomass mission. And it addresses the identified user needs so WMO has already identified the need for reflectometry in its we got 2040 vision, and the G cost EC, ECVs. And some, there's some urgency because the soil moisture and free store is not adequately measured in the long term so smacks map and smarts are now operating past their design life, and we are facing a potential gap. So, Hydro GNSS is a showcase for GNSS reflectometry and new measurements but it's more than that it's it's also taking measurements of these ECV related variables, and the second satellite operation will double the coverage and improve the return. And it prepares the way for a constellation of eight satellites which could cover the globe every three days. This is a more sustainable approach, compared to other technologies, and it provides immediate benefits for weather forecasting and flood alerting as well as providing measurements for the climate and it links closely to the cop 26 space enabled net zero in UK national space technology, monitoring the climate variables helps as we tackle climate change and see the results of our work. And that's the end of my talk. Thank you very much. Thank you very much Martin fascinating stuff really interesting thank you for that. I have a couple of questions that have come up if I if I may post some of those to you. So there's a couple of a couple of different areas here the first set of questions are really around the sort of future for these kind of missions. So I'll post them together if that's okay. And the first is whether whether these sort of micro satellites are they are these the future of these sorts of missions, they're going to replace the larger missions in your view. I think in a word no, no, I don't think so I think there's always going to be a need for, for some of these missions you know the, I think you know some of the measurements which are taken by the big satellites are incredibly valuable. I think there'll be an uproar if, if people thought that small satellites would take their place I think it's, it's a case by case basis. And I think in this case that there is a strong case I think it's, it's a harder sell in other areas the, the, the, the obvious advantage of small satellites is their low cost which means that you could put up a consolation you get the spatial and temporal resolution. It is very special, but it should be recognized the value that some of these big satellites with the big apertures are taking that they're vital. And so I think probably the future is, is a combination where it makes sense that you have a backbone with these sort of national or international missions. And where it makes sense, they can be augmented by small satellites that are taking higher temporal and spatial resolution at the moment you've got Copernicus with these big missions and I think really they, they, they could do with augmenting with smaller satellites where it makes sense. Great. You mentioned on one of your slides the, the concept of a hydro GNSS plus which was 12 satellites and is that, is that something that you see as a realistic possibility in the future or is that sort of just a concept. Well I think if you, there is a precedent for this, and that is radio occultation where quite definitely you have 12 satellites taking measurements in the atmosphere. That has been very successful. So, so for those people who aren't familiar, it's very similar to what we're doing with the reflectometry. The satellite in orbit picks up the GNSS signals as they go through the atmosphere, measure the bending angle. And from the bending angle you can recover the temperature pressure and humidity of the atmosphere and you can also measure the iron sphere total electron count. And that has been incredibly successful. There are institutional satellites that take measurements of that the grass payload on the metop one. And there are also institutional constellation called the most at seven cosmic two, which is a US Taiwanese constellation, and there's Chinese institutional missions but interestingly they're also commercial satellites that are topping up the earth. So, there's three companies the spire global as geo optics and there's planet IQ that are have commercial measurements and it's, they are able to add to the sort of backbone measurements and that has come up with a model that works where there is a scientific community that agrees to purchase these and but they purchase them on the basis that they are released as public open data so it's kind of a system that works and maybe something like that could work with reflectometry as well. That kind of brings on to the next step questions around the, the access to the data. So there's a question about where, where, where the data generated by the mission to be stored and what are the overall, overall estimated volumes of raw and processed data colleges. Well it's going to be. When we're talking about the full raw data that there's many gigabytes. Then when it's processed down into the level to products which is what we expect most people to use. Then it's quite small, it's, it's, it's small amounts of data. We're making both available we're making level one delay dopler maps available, and we're making level to available it's, it's, this is this is an institutional mission. It's free and open data level nor maybe a bit more control there's some sensitivity to the unprocessed data but that's going to be the minority of the data it's, it's majority is going to be level one and level two. And it's hosted at sstl in Guildford and we're setting up gigabyte links to the internet. The, the data is owned by Issa. And we're still working through all the data access details but it's, it's going to be made available via a web portal. So we've, we've already had a web portal for the TDS one data which has been very successful with hundreds of users. And so we're, we're sort of basing it on that. I think that's answered most of the questions. Yeah, that's great. Thank you. Question about calibration so so are the GNSS for electronic measurements calibrated using Issa SMOS and NASA SMAP data as well as Grand Truth measurements. Certainly, they will be cross compared with a SMOS's map I think that would be the ideal. If they're still operating when 100 NSS goes up I think that would be the plan plan a would be to use SMAP and SMOS as the calibration over the globe, but we also have alternative approaches. And we have one or two calibration sites there's the San Luis Valley in Colorado that Cygnus has been using and I think some of our scientists have worked closely with the Cygnus team. So, and we also got a site in Finland. And we're working closely with Wolfgang Wagner with the international soil moisture network. So that provides a database for the global soil moisture. Biomass is one of the hardest ones because there isn't really such a. I mean there are models but we're we're lacking for us biomass so we're looking at Gabon, which I think is going to be used for the biomass mission as a calibration site, but it probably needs to be expanded to to use for hydrogen SS so there are some challenges ahead. Thank you. So the question about coverage. So you mentioned temporal coverage but what latency are you targeting for actionable data to be available after measurement. Okay well bearing in mind that this is a low cost rapid schedule mission. We haven't put this as our top requirement, but we are aware that the future use is going to be for weather applications in which case it needs to be a matter of hours. So with we've got a requirement 31 days and then we've got a target of less than seven days we may end up layering our data, where we have a fast data delivery that's kind of track based. And then we have a gridded delivery that's going to be a bit longer delay, and there's certain bits of auxiliary data that we can use to improve our measurements. I think we're very conscious that there are there is a large significant user community that wants the data quickly and so we are taking that into account. Thank you. A couple questions about applications of the data so are there some case studies where these data have been used in the environmental applications. There are, there are, there are. I think, again, we're fortunate that the sickness has kind of paved the way so there's, there's quite a bit of, there's quite a bit of usage of sickness and I think there's a lot of references on the web. Accessible via the web from sickness for soil moisture and that there's some people connected with NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory who are looking at the flood response as well. Free store not yet because they don't sickness doesn't cover free so although we're able to do some testing over the Andes and Himalayan plateau. And biomass not yet. So, but the soil moisture yes I think it's an inundation is that there are some applications where they're exploring it. Just just one final question the focus here is on is on sort of natural change and detecting natural changes but is there are there any applications of this kind of data to monitor human activity and changes as a result of human activity. Yes, yes, there are. There's several I mean this is that this is a, in effect, genus has reflectometry is that is a is a is a kind of radar. And you think of all the things that saw can be used for a lot of those things genus has reflectometry can do. Some of them. I mean one of the things that sickness has done is is monitoring the plastic build up in the oceans by seeing the plastic effects the behavior of the surface the ocean. And so it's possible to sort of extrapolate and work out where the plastic is from the behavior. So that's one area I think with hydrogen SS another interesting one is, although biomass is really ECV wants it as a yearly product, you can actually generate it faster. And so it's possible to spot forest disturbance, perhaps from fires, using the measurements from reflectometry. And I think there's, there's, there's other effects which are a bit more tangential like for example we can we can see some man made interference in the hellbound which is less of interest to most of this community but there are other people who are interested in that. And thank you. I think that's that's probably a question so thank you very much for that Martin thank you again for a fascinating talk and for taking time to share that with us. And to remind everybody that we recorded the session, and that will be made available on the YouTube channel and on the website. And please do subscribe to that YouTube channel if you haven't already done so. The next webinar in the series will be on Friday the 10th of June at 11 o'clock, and that'll be presented by Liz Kent on making old data more useful. So please do make a note of that one and book your place now, again via the websites. I think we're probably done so thank you again to Martin, and thank you all for attending, and we will close the session there so enjoy the rest of the day. Thanks. Fantastic thanks very much Martin that's great. Thanks Martin. Thanks Edwin. Thank you. There are lots of applications some of which aren't even properly understood and known yet I guess. There are I didn't mention the Greenland ice melt. People have been using it for that they can measuring ice thickness as well. There's there's there's a there's a whole load of stuff that this can do ocean plastic ones fascinating so that are people actually doing doing that. There's there's papers on the on the web. I mean it's a it's a little bit vicarious but it's better than not having anything. The resolution of these is as you mentioned 25 kilometers as it's, it's very difficult to nail down the resolution and you kind of have to.  But when you go over a you find a flat surface for example a river under a forest or a jungle. It's really flat and it, it actually causes very strong reflections it becomes coherent and then you're down to the Fresnel zone, which for GPS is about 500 meters for L band. So it was that sort of made everyone's jaw drop when we started seeing this in the data. We only sample it once a second which is about six and a half seven kilometer resolution so there's a lot more potential there when you've got the right surface. With the Fresnel zones you get this kind of sink shape you get these side lobes so it's not easy to one entangle but the resolutions there. I noticed in the chat that Andy Turner does it says he's interested in the provenance data data processing does that. The provenance data of the data processing what does that mean exactly. I'm not sure. For reproducibility. Okay. Well, I mean we were publishing. I'm still not quite sure I understood the question but I'll try and answer it and so we, we will be having traceable processes we've got published, we will be publishing the algorithm theoretical baseline documents, and we will be letting people have access to the level one be so I think, hopefully that gives enough visibility that people can reproduce the results and they'll know that when we've reprocessed the level one be. It will be labeled so that there won't be any nasty surprises. We recognize it's quite complex to trace these things and people can waste a lot of time when data has changed when it was reprocessed so we will we will try and make it as traceable as possible.