Satellites can help us to safeguard nature’s richest carbon storehouses – peatlands. Peatlands make up just 3% of land but capture twice as much carbon as all forests combined. They are also an important source of drinking water and provide a home to many rare and threatened animals and plants. 

Globalised travel, trade, and the changing environment allow certain disease-spreading insects, and tourists infected with these diseases, to travel further, with greater ease, than ever before. Europe is now at risk of hitherto unfamiliar illnesses transmitted by these insects, which are referred to as vectors by health researchers.