Activities in Papua New Guinea

Four counterpart officers from the Papua New Guinea Forest Authority (PNGFA), went to Tokyo to attend training programs from 5th to 19th September, 2015. These programs are a part of technology transfer and capacity development activities of the Project, and aimed at introducing advanced skills which cannot be acquired in PNG, such as the skills for data management and forest monitoring by using the PNG-Forest Resource Information Management System (PNG-FRIMS). The four members are in charge of various duties in PNGFA such as mapping, ICT (Information and Communication Technology) and supervision of logging operation plans. In the training programs, the four members were grouped into two teams; one is to take the course on remote sensing (RS) / Geographic Information System (GIS) training and the other for the course on a database (DB) management.

In the RS / GIS training course, the two trainees visited KOKUSAI KOGYO Co., Ltd. (KKC) to learn fundamental knowledge of RS and GIS and importance of forest monitoring and characteristics of RS data utilized for forest monitoring. During the course, they were able to download RS data through internet connections for their analysis. As it is still very difficult to obtain RS data from a website in Papua New Guinea (PNG) because of its slow speed of internet connection, what they experienced in this training would be a great asset to their future activities on forest monitoring in PNG. They also visited the Remote Sensing Technology Center of Japan (RESTEC) to learn the principles of radar satellite operations and the art of data processing and utilization through hands-on trainings. Since radar satellite data is not affected by clouds, it would be a very useful tool for forest monitoring in tropical rain forest regions such as in some parts of PNG. The experience to learn this technology in RESTEC, which is a provider of radar satellite data, was a valuable for them.

In the DB training course, the two trainees learned the roles and system composition of the PNG-FRIMS and how to install it into a computer. They acquired skills to manage and operate the PNG-FRIMS as an administrator, not as a mere user of it. They also visited ESRI Japan and attended a three-day lecture to enhance their skills to utilize and share various forest information stored in the PNG-FRIMS. After the lecture, they listed up the issues involved in their daily work and proposed the possible solutions by using their newly acquired skills through this training so that they could improve the performance of their daily works in the PNGFA and built a web application to solve the issues. Their experiences in designing and building the application are one of the most promising segments of this training course because they are very useful to promote expansion and enhancement of the PNG-FRIMS in the future.

The trainees presented what they learned through these training programs on the very final day in Japan. It seemed that all the trainees acquired useful skills for their own works. Using those skills for their daily work would keep on enhancing their technical capacity continuously.

Back in PNG, the trainees shared their training reports with their colleagues in the PNGFA. Furthermore it is expected that the trainees will utilize their acquired skills for various duties in the PNGFA by referring to manuals, models and applications which were created during the training, and that sharing those skills with their colleagues will strengthen the knowledge base in the PNGFA.

Forest Monitoring Map which was created through RS / GIS training course

Image of the application which was built through DB training course

Remote Sensing / Geographic Information System training course

Data Base training course

The presentation on the final day of the training in Japan

The training report meeting in PNGFA