Das Projekt "Establishing a Regional System for Ecological Monitoring in the Lake Baikal Region" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Jena, Institut für Geographie, Abteilung Geoinformatik und Fernerkundung durchgeführt. The Lake Baikal region is a very special and beautiful and in many parts still untouched country. During the last decade the following impacts are however strongly increasing: - national and international tourism; - illegal logging activities due to wood demand from Mongolia, China and Japan; - gold and gas exploration;- also uncontrolled immigration and settlement by Chinese population is a daily political issue. Together with natural risks like fire and Earthquakes, the region needs a well-coordinated ecological monitoring centre. This INTAS project has demonstrated successfully the application of up-to-date publicly available Earth observation and in-situ data and interpretation techniques.