A Message From Mike Kendrick - Founder of The Mineseeker Foundation.

LANDMINES kill, maim, terrify and starve the population. There are over 70 million landmines buried beneath the surface of this planet. Every twenty minutes a land mine kills or maims someone… usually women and children. They render over 800 thousand square kilometers of land useless and terrify millions of people who live in constant fear.The cost to human life is horrific and the economic effect is devastating. This is not an act of God, or a natural disaster - It is a man made disaster that is bigger, in terms of lives lost, than civil disruption and economic deprivation, including the Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina or the Pakistan earthquake.

Using current technology and strategies, it has been estimated that it could take up to 600 years to rid the planet of these devices. It takes a mine clearance operative one day to clear 40 sq meters. However, the Patrons of Mineseeker discovered a new technology that was available that could condense the removal of landmines to the next fifty years. This ground-penetrating radar, when carried on a stable aerial platform, can scan the ground at 100 meters per second. This technology, developed by the British MOD, has been licensed to Mineseeker for humanitarian de-mining. We deployed the system in ravaged Kosovo and tested it in live conditions. The results were spectacular. This system can fix the problem within our life time. While Mineseeker will liberate the designated landmine areas, it will not stop there. We have introduced the 'Sole of Africa' campaign to make sure that the land is used to grow crops, feed the local population and, most importantly, to empower the people. We intend to take the land and form a cooperative, dividing the land into small farm units.

Animation video of the Mineseeker Airship

This cooperative will teach the local population to, sow, grow, harvest and sell the produce. We have formed an association with leading not-for-profit organizations including 'Feed the Children' and The International Youth Foundation to provide a 'Foster Management' to create a workforce and training to farm the land and sustain the development of the land.

We have identified Mozambique and Angola as two areas of outstanding need and will concentrate on those areas until the project is completed. The 'Sole of Africa' logo is a poignant reminder of the job at hand, as it shows just one foot print: Most mine victims that survive only have one foot, so this shows a footprint in the earth… the earth we intend to release back to the people.

JOIN US to "Put Our Foot Down" and take this first step.

MORE ABOUT MINESEEKER

The Solution - Airships
Given the high cost, low productivity and inherent danger of de-mining, efficient location and delineation of dangerous areas is key to a rapid reduction in social and economic impact. Today's technology will produce immediate and quantifiable reduction of the social and economic impact of landmines. One well recognized way in which technology can play an important role is through airborne delineation of mine and UXO contaminated areas to reduce the risk of unintentional entry into hazardous areas, contribute to the efficient allocation of scarce clearance resources and to immediately release land for productive use in order to encourage economic growth and stability.

A 20% improvement in the effectiveness of level 2 (technical) surveys could save US$200-250K for each square kilometer of contaminated land in addition to a potential cereal crop yield of US$47,730 per square kilometer per year (Humanitarian Demining in SE Europe, GICHD 2000).

Mineseeker harnesses radar and airship technologies to release a mined area survey capability that is fast, accurate and efficient. This will assist in saving time, money and lives as part of the humanitarian mine action value chain. Through a strong partnership and an opportunity to lever high levels of past investment in these technologies the Mineseeker proposition is a unique and highly competitive offering. Able to fly at slow speeds and low-level for long periods of time with an exceptionally low risk of critical failure the vibration-free platform offered by an airship provides the optimum environment from which to operate sensor technology. The sensor technology used is Ultra Wideband Radar a unique technology, capable of airborne detection of plastic landmines, developed over many years for UK defence programmes and now made available for use in humanitarian demining. UK testing and the deployment in Kosovo of a prototype system has demonstrated that an airship platform has a significant degree of capability in a mine action role and investigated the current level of performance of the prototype radar. It was possible to survey ground at 100 square meters per second during radar trials.

These trials represent the world's first use of an airship in a humanitarian role and in a post-conflict environment along with the first airborne trials of this type of unique radar system. Valuable lessons were generated and advice gathered from the mine action community that will form a valuable backbone for both development and future operations.

Waiting for 'blue skies' technology to provide the Silver Bullet is not the route to more effective mine clearance. Rapid development of pre-existing technology offers the opportunity to make a difference now. Further development of this technology once deployed will benefit from the cost-efficiencies of lessons learnt in operational roles.

Additional benefits of the deployment of such technologies in a humanitarian role may include mine clearance quality assurance, route survey for aid movement, monitoring of refugee movements and land use survey. MORE ABOUT MINESEEKER