Project News

In northern Laos, the conversion of forests into agricultural land is a major driver of deforestation and forest degradation. For the implementation of REDD+, it is urgently necessary to develop a forest monitoring system, improve forest monitoring technologies, and promote the utilization of this system for forests that should be protected.

F-REDD has been working on the development of a monitoring system using satellite images since 2018. The forest monitoring system consists in that, first, forest officers use Google Earth Engine to identify deforestation areas by analyzing the satellite images. Then, they use an application on a tablet to input the respective information on deforestation areas at each site after field inspection with concerned parties. Finally, they provide administrative guidance to the violators and inform the law enforcement agency if necessary. This forest monitoring system is being introduced in the provinces of Luang Prabang and Oudomxay, which are the target provinces of F-REDD.

In December 2019, a joint monitoring training was held for forest officers in Luang Prabang and Oudomxay. Moreover, in the last dry season in early 2019, forest monitoring trainings were held for the forest officers in Luang Prabang, and forest monitoring trials using the system were done in 6 villages of Luang Prabang. This year, forest monitoring trainings will be carried out during the dry season in 2020 (January to April), and our target for implementing forest monitoring using the system will be expanded to cover 21 villages in Luang Prabang and Oudomxay.

In the 2019 training, the forest officers of Luang Prabang Province gave feedback about their forest monitoring experience at the training during the last dry season and gave advice on how to operate PCs and tablets to the forest officers of Oudomxay Province. The active knowledge sharing was done by the leading province of Luang Prabang, and both provinces were actively involved in the training.

F-REDD will continuously follow-up with both Luang Prabang and Oudomxay and expects that in the near future the forest monitoring system will be promoted from the two provinces to the northern provinces in Laos as a tool to prevent deforestation.

Classroom training of the forest monitoring system

Classroom training of the forest monitoring system

Field training of the forest monitoring system