The Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD) hosted a five-day forest degradation monitoring workshop from 19- 23rd, October 2015. The workshop attracted experts from various countries including Kenya, Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Somalia, Tanzania, and Uganda. The workshop comprised presentations on methods, national capacities and dynamics, training and practical work, and synthesis of results and outlook. In terms of promoting forest monitoring in the East African region, the forest degradation monitoring workshop aimed at reinforcing the capacity to process, interpret and obtain information from satellite data, outline options and strategies for national forest agencies on how to monitor forest change, and assess worldwide forest change product by country.

Participants being shown how a tool works during a training session in the lab.

This was among a set of workshops organized by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) to inform partner institutions and train them in techniques for monitoring and assessing forest degradation using remote sensing and field survey. The forest degradation monitoring workshop was under the ReCaREDD project hosted by JRC. The goal of the project is to increase the capacity of institutions in partner countries to report on forest degradation, in a dependable and cost-efficient way. RCMRD is implementing land degradation assessment and forest monitoring in the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) region through the Monitoring for Environment and Security in Africa (MESA) project.