Looting and site destruction are global problems. We have a tough road ahead, and one key will be developing more collaborations and using new technologies like satellite imagery.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Satellite imagery is the only way we can map the looting patterns effectively.
I am one of many people documenting damage and looting at ancient sites from space - it is such a crucial tool.
We've found that patterns of site looting have increased between 500 and 1000 percent since the start of the Arab Spring. Now this is a problem as old as human beings. People were looting tombs 5,000 years ago in Egypt as soon as people were buried, but the problem is only getting worse and worse.
We have been endowed with the capacity and the power to create desirable pictures within and to find them automatically in the outer world of our environment.
There shouldn't be any looting or anything like that. But we're seeing a lot of frustration, and nobody knows the answer. All of us are saying we need an answer, and what I'm saying is we need, all of us, a heart change so, as America, we can move forward.
It's absolutely critical, you know, to train young men and women not just to find sites, but also to protect sites, especially in the wake of the Arab Spring. There's been significant site-looting in Egypt and elsewhere across the Middle East.
To destroy images is something every revolution has been able to do.
You think looting is bad in Egypt, look at Peru, India, China. I've been told in China there are over a quarter-million archaeological sites, and most have been looted. This is a global problem of massive proportions, and we don't know the scale.
We're literally just beginning to learn how to use satellites to find sites. More and more people are realizing there's this incredible tool.
We have so many issues with overpopulation and urbanization and site looting. And this isn't just Egypt. This is everywhere in the world, even in America. So we only have a limited amount of time left before many archaeological sites all over the world are destroyed.
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