January 10, 2006 -- Natural Resources Canada – Ottawa, Ontario, Canada - Natural Resources Canada would like to make the Earth observation imagery providers aware of its intention to obtain a new set of images and orthoimages for the 2005-2010 period. Proponents are encouraged to monitor the Canada MERX Public Tenders website for this call. This call will be available for a planned period of five (5) weeks commencing January 10th 2006.

In October 2005, a Canadian Council on Geomatics (CCOG) resolution recognized the benefits coming from the Landsat-7 project for federal departments, CCOG members, and users across Canada. This resolution also supports the initiative for a new image coverage through Geobase.

The requirement for this call was confirmed through a study contracted by the Geomatics for Sustainable Development of Natural Resources program of Natural Resources Canada and the Canadian Space Agency, and also by a survey conducted with our federal stakeholders. The needs are mainly for multi-temporal assessment of environmental and natural resources, global monitoring, topographic data updates, public safety, emergency preparedness and national defence.

The coverage in this call will have a better resolution (10/20 meters) than the Landsat-7 product. This new coverage will not be subject to any restriction for its use, extraction or distribution much like the Landsat-7 project.