APOPO is a global non-profit with Belgian roots that deploys scent-detection animals (HeroDOGs and HeroRATs) to detect landmines and tuberculosis. APOPO's scent detection technology has a massive potential to relieve human suffering and promote development when used in landmine response, as well as in currently unexplored fields. APOPO's HeroDOGs are working in Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Ukraine and Senegal.
Landmines injure or kill innocent civilians every day and pose a structural barrier to development long after war ends. According to the Landmine Monitor, Cambodia is one of the most mine-affected countries in the world, with over 680km of land still contaminated by landmines and 740 by cluster munitions remnants. It's estimated that many hundreds of thousands of landmines and other explosives continue to litter the countryside, presenting a major humanitarian and socio-economic challenge.
A single Technical Survey Dog (aka HeroDOG) can effectively survey up to 4000m2 a day across challenging terrain with thick vegetation. Equipped with a GPS collar, our HeroDOGs are high-drive search dogs that went through a rigorous training process and showed a consistent ability to follow a long search pattern of at least 25 meters. The dogs. upon identification of a landmine where their location is precisely recorded. Upon completion of their survey, all landmines are then safely destroyed.
For almost 30 years, local communities have been unable to use farmland for risk of losing life or limb; APOPO's landmine clearance will return much-needed safe land back to communities as quickly and cost-effectively as possible. The work of our HeroDOGs reduces landmine casualties, and enables communities to utilize their land to drill wells for water, and for planting crops, such as rice, mango, cashew nuts etc. securing the families' long-term income as they sell their crops in the market.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
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