The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) concluded a Memorandum of Unity (MOU) for cooperating in monitoring World Heritage Sites using the Advanced Land Observing Satellite "DAICHI" (ALOS) to watch and protect the common legacy of all mankind.

Since 2003, UNESCO has been monitoring the World Heritage Sites by satellite to protect them, in corporation with the European Space Agency (ESA), under the "open initiative on the use of space technologies to support the World Heritage". Meanwhile, JAXA has been monitoring all over the Earth for about three years through the "DAICHI" since its launch in January 2006. JAXA and UNESCO had been discussing the possibility of using data acquired by the "DAICHI," and decided to conclude a MOU. Under the MOU, JAXA agrees to acquire image data on 10 World Heritage Sites 2 in Japan and other foreign countries, mainly Asian countries, and will provide the data to UNESCO twice a year. In addition, JAXA plans to make a data base of World Heritage Site images acquired to date to publish them. UNESCO will use the data to help protect World Heritage Sites with other related research institutions in the world and the hosts of the Heritage Sites. JAXA and UNESCO will cooperatively do our best to carry out our respective roles to protect the World Heritage Sites, which have a common universal value for all mankind, and to ensure they are inherited to the next generation. JAXA and UNESCO held a ceremony for concluding the MOU at the JAXA Tokyo office on December 2, 2008.