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  • At GLF Climate, youth shared 13 sustainable forestry innovations for the Asia-Pacific region

At GLF Climate, youth shared 13 sustainable forestry innovations for the Asia-Pacific region


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More than ever, forests and trees are called upon to address the great global challenges of our times, among which are: climate change, deforestation, forest degradation, biodiversity erosion, poverty and food insecurity. Innovative technologies – including digital technologies, biological technologies, technical innovations in processes and products, innovative finance and social innovations – hold a huge potential to advance sustainable forest management and help address these challenges, globally and in the Asia-Pacific region. However, technology adoption has been slow and uneven in the region. As technology enthusiasts, forest guardians and forest managers of tomorrow, young people have a leading role to play in generating momentum and revolutionizing institutions from within to support the uptake and scaling-up of innovative technologies in Asia and the Pacific.

This is why, on Friday, 5 Nov. 2021, FAO and the CGIAR Research Programme on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) co-organized a session highlighting youth perspectives on innovative forest technologies. This event attracted over 400 attendees and was part of the GLF Climate hybrid conference, “Frontiers of Change.” “Instead of another meeting to exchange on the global and pressing issues, we wanted, during this event, to focus on innovative solutions and share a note of optimism and hope” said Vincent Gitz (CIFOR), FTA Director.

On behalf of FAO, Rao Matta, Forestry Officer, highlighted the important role innovation can play to make the forest sector more attractive to young people. He invited the youth to become “innovation champions,” to play a pivotal role in scaling-up innovative technologies, and to bring their unique forward-looking and out-of-the-box thinking perspectives to the discussion table. “FAO,” he said, “is fully committed to promote the visibility of youth and of their seminal work”.

During this event, FAO and FTA gave the floor to students and young professionals involved in the forest sector in Asia and the Pacific, to hear some of their ideas to unleash the potential offered by innovative technologies to advance sustainable forest management. 13 young people, aged 18–35, from nine different countries of the Asia-Pacific region who were selected by FAO and CIFOR after an open call for contributions presented their works in 3 minutes each.

Their talks illustrated, in various contexts, the huge potential of innovative forest technologies to advance sustainable forestry and sustainable forest management. Together, the guest speakers covered a broad range of topics, showing how technologies — both new and repurposed — can improve and facilitate monitoring and reporting, strengthen citizen engagement in forest monitoring and management and support process and product innovations in the forest sector in the Asia-Pacific region. These ideas are also inspiring globally and in other contexts.

YOU CAN REPLAY THE FULL EVENT HERE

The presentations gave way to a lively session of questions and answers with the audience. The back-and-forth discussions revealed some of the barriers to uptake and scale innovative technologies. These blockages include: (i) the limited internet connection in rural or remote areas; (ii) the high level of upfront investments that may be required for technology adoption, including for equipment, infrastructure development, capacity-building and involvement of local communities. Participants also noted that restrictive or rigid policies and regulations often lag far behind the quick evolution of innovative technologies, which can hamper their use and dissemination. For instance, current policies and rules may not allow the use of data collected by remote sensing methods in official statistics or as forensic evidence. Concluding this event, Rao Matta, indicated  that intensive, follow-up actions will be organized at country level, probably next year. Young experts will once again be invited to share their experience and views on sustainable innovations for the Asia-Pacific.

To access the 13 video presentations, please follow the links below:

Session 1: How can innovative technologies improve and facilitate monitoring?

  1. Shahrukh Kamran (Pakistan): Development, testing and implementation of insect-catching drones.
  2. Kyuho Lee (Republic of Korea): Drones for planning and monitoring forest ecosystem restoration: towards a forest degradation index
  3. Angga Saputra (Indonesia): Estimating tree height, canopy cover and tree diameter using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology.
  4. Cecille de Jesus (the Philippines): Follow the water: advanced technologies for demonstrating forest-water-community relationships.
  5. Thuan Sarzynski (Vietnam): Google Earth Engine, an innovative technology for forest conservation.
  6. Marie Jessica Gabriel (the Philippines): Spatial Monitoring And Reporting Tool (SMART).

Session 2: How can innovative technologies facilitate the engagement of civil society, local communities, smallholders and youth?

  1. Sony Lama (Nepal): Forest Watcher: employing citizen science in forest management of Nepal.
  2. Nur Bahar (Malaysia): How to effectively engage youth in satellite-based tropical forest monitoring?
  3. June Mandawali (Papua New Guinea): Community Based Tree Nurseries in Ramu/Markham Valley of Papua New Guinea.

Session 3: How can innovative technologies support optimization of processes and products for sustainable forest management?

  1. Sanjayaraj Tamang (Nepal): Invasive species management in Nepal: a pathway to sustainable forest management.
  2. Clarence Gio S. Almoite (the Philippines): Building back Philippine biodiversity through geotagging mother tree species for modernized and mechanized forest nurseries.
  3. Prachi Gupta (India): Advances in the wood anatomical studies with innovations in microscopy.
  4. Deasy Ramatia (Indonesia): Binderless particleboard: production process and self- bonding mechanisms.
Download the PDF!

All of these 3-minute presentations have been developed in detailed scientific articles and gathered in a FAO and FTA co-publication entitled, Innovative forestry for a sustainable future. Youth contributions from Asia and the Pacific.

This youth publication is part of a broader roadmap jointly developed by FAO and FTA on innovative forest technologies in the Asia-Pacific region.

Click here for more information on this roadmap process.

 


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  • Peatlands: The view from space

Peatlands: The view from space


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The Congo River is pictured in Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo by Ollivier Girard/CIFOR
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The sky is seen above the forest canopy after logging in the Unamat forest, Madre de Dios, Peru. Photo by Marco Simola/CIFOR

How can satellites help map and monitor critical peat landscapes?

Dense, damp and often remote, tropical peatlands are notoriously difficult to map and monitor on the ground. So how about from space?

New methods using satellite data are finding increasing success in assessing the extent, distribution and even the volume of peatlands around the world, as well as monitoring threats to their sustainable management.

Some of the latest developments in this area were presented by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and partners at a side event during the UNFCCC Bonn Climate Change Conference held in Germany from May 8-18.

The findings continue to challenge widely-held assumptions about where peat is located, how much of it is out there, and how it can be conserved and sustainably managed to contribute to efforts on global climate change mitigation and adaptation.

A NEW GENERATION OF DATA SOURCES

Frank Martin Seifert from the European Space Agency (ESA), a cohost of the side event in Bonn, shared the ongoing work of the European Copernicus satellite program, which currently operates a fleet of dedicated satellites for environment and civil security monitoring.

Five of the satellites, known as ‘Sentinels’, are already in orbit, imaging the surface of the Earth. The resulting data are available for free and open access by anyone, anywhere in the world.

But what about peat, which mainly lies below the Earth’s surface? Can a satellite detect that?

Watch: More peat in the tropics: Implications for climate change

“Most peat is not directly visible from space,” Seifert says. “But you can still derive a lot of the characteristics of peatlands, and any critical changes, from satellite images.”

Two of the Sentinels are particularly useful for mapping wetlands and peatlands, Seifert says. Sentinel-1 is a radar mission with cloud-penetrating, night-and-day imaging capability, while Sentinel-2, the high-resolution optical mission of the Copernicus program, can map the entire land surface of the Earth in a matter of days.

Together, these two satellites can detect extent, moisture and water levels of wetlands and peatlands, as well as threats to their environmental integrity, such as land conversion for agriculture and urban developments, logging in swamp forests, degradation and damage caused by fires.

As global efforts move toward conservation and restoration of peatlands, the data will also be useful for monitoring, reporting and verifying successes on the ground.

The Congo River is pictured in Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo by Ollivier Girard/CIFOR

PUT INTO PRACTICE

As part of the Global Peatlands Initiative (GPI) launched at the 2016 Global Landscapes Forum in Marrakesh, ESA is developing and demonstrating methodologies for mapping and monitoring peatlands globally, and deriving best practices for use in the assessment of peatlands.

Demonstrations will take place in GPI’s three pilot areas — Indonesia, the Congo Basin and Peru — and further areas in the temperate and boreal zone. The findings will be useful for local, national and global efforts to conserve, manage and restore peatlands, as well as to tackle climate change.

In Indonesia, for example, satellite data can support ongoing efforts to better manage the country’s critical peatlands.

At the local level, peatlands in Indonesia support livelihoods and regulate essential ecosystem services. But draining, burning and conversion of peatlands for agriculture and other purposes is threatening the sustainability of the relationship between peat and people. Conversion and burning of peatlands are also a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, posing an increased threat of climate change.

Read also: Eyes on the livelihoods of peatland communities

The national government has responded by forming a Peatland Restoration Agency (BRG). But this body will need solid data to carry out its mandate and track its progress. So where will it find the information it needs?

“Satellite data has the advantage of providing a panoptic overview of an area, as well as indicators of threats,” Seifert says. “This makes it easier to control; easier to see what’s happening.”

The Sentinel-1 satellite was able to pick up areas burned by forest fires in Indonesia during the El Niño crisis of 2015. By combining this data with international peat inventories and national data on forest cover, researchers were able to calculate an estimate of the total greenhouse gas emissions from the fires.

The issues involved in managing Indonesia’s peatlands were further discussed in a new infobrief from CIFOR shared at the side event in Bonn.

GLOBAL DATA

Combined with ground data and modelling, satellites can help to ensure consistency and transparency of data, enabling international comparisons. ESA is also sensitive to the demands of countries to manage their own resources using their own data, and making their own assessments.

The Copernicus satellite data is available for free and open access, but capacity is needed to interpret and analyze it. Data analysis toolboxes can help build this capacity – for example, a new toolbox will be released later this year on wetland inventories and habitat mapping in Africa, to manage wetlands, assess threats and detect changes.

CIFOR and partners have also begun to develop data toolboxes, such as the Global Wetlands map, the CarboScen land-use scenario simulator and the Indonesia Peatland Network Toolbox, for managing peatlands in relation to climate change.

But even with these advanced tools at hand, further research will always be needed at the ground level to see how dynamics play out in the landscape.

“The challenge is how to bring these approaches together,” Seifert says.

By Catriona Croft-Cusworth, originally published at CIFOR’s Forests News

For more information on this topic, please contact Daniel Murdiyarso at d.murdiyarso@cgiar.org.


This research forms part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry. This work is supported by CGIAR Fund Donors.


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