The extraction of the Leaf Area Index (LAI), or the fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fAPAR), is one the most challenging issues related to the use of existing (AVHRR/NOAA, POLDER/ADEOS) and forthcoming (VGT/SPOT4, MODIS-MISR/EOS) satellite sensors operating in the reflected solar radiation system. Efforts in this area are at an early stage. An algorithm for the retrieval of LAI and fAPAR based on the inversion of a BRDF model against airborne POLDER data acquired over various biomes has been successfully tested. In this paper, we present the first performance of the algorithm against available spaceborne level 2 data (cloud screened, atmospherically corrected) over Austral Africa.