The Sociedad Especialistas Latinoamericana en Percepción Remota (SELPER) Symposium is one of the most important scientific meetings in this region in the field of remote sensing and GIS. The symposium was organised by SELPER/Chile and sponsored by ESA, CONAE, INPE, GLCN, CNES, UNOOSA, FIDAE, SAF and CSA.

Symposium Programme
Eighty papers were presented during two plenary sessions, eleven technical sessions and one poster session. The topics of the plenary sessions were ‘Spaces Agencies’ and ‘International Co-operation’. The main topics of the technical and poster sessions were:

• Environment and Natural Resources
  
• GIS and Land Use Planning
  
• Epidemiological Monitoring and Management
  
• Digital Terrain Models
  
• Hydrography and Oceanography
  
• Natural Resources, Agriculture and Forestry
  
• Remote Sensing Methodologies
  
• Geology
  
• Evaluation and Risk Management
  
• Education and Dissemination in Remote Sensing.

• one-week international course on RADAR interferometry focusing on providing specific knowledge on SAR images with emphasis on image processing and use of interferometry techniques for DEM-generation
  
• two-day course on Space Technology Applied to Epidemiological Diseases addressing medical professionals
  
• one-day introduction course to China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite (CBERS) sensors, products and applications in forestry and cartography
  
• one-day workshop on Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy Applied to Geology and Mineral Exploration providing a fundamental understanding of the principles and application of spectral remote sensing addressing exploration geologists
  
• one-day workshop on Global Land Cover Network addressing main topics for data standardisation, Land Cover Classification System (LCCS) concepts, GLCN tools, practical applications, users needs and data dissemination.