Botswana: Alex Lemarkoko, Chief Conservator of Forests hosted a meeting with some project officers on Tuesday. The officers hailed from from the Strengthening Forest Sector Development and Community Resilience to Climate Change through Landscape Restoration Project (SFS-CORECC).
The team of the officers was headed by the Component Manager Joseph Njigoya. The aim of the meeting was to be briefed on the progress of the updating of the National Forest Monitoring System (NFMS).
The project which is supported by JICA Kenya aims to strengthen the forest monitoring capacity of the country. The team also included Yasuko Inoue, Tae Ose and Abdnego Osindi. the technical experts from JICA Kenya.
They informed the CCF that operationalisation of the system will involve other stakeholders in the forestry sector. These stakeholders will be mobilised and capacity built to enable them to interact with it.
The system will have input from various stakeholders to enable the country have an accurate and comprehensive data on forestry which will inform policy formulation and effective management of forests.
The CCF thanked JICA Kenya office for its support not only in the SFS-CORECC project but also in other forestry projects over the years. He noted that the operationalisation of the NFMS will greatly improve the monitoring capacity of the Service.
He especially mentioned this in relation with the 15 billion trees growing campaigning. He said it will be integrated with other monitoring tools including the Jaza Miti App.
The CCF Alex Lemarkoko added that while a lot of work in landscape restoration was being done by various stakeholders. He said that the lack of a monitoring system was affecting the proper reporting of the progress being made to address climate change issues.
Other members of the team included Ag. Manager Forest Survey and Information Management Dr. Benjamin Kinyili. He said that the system was about 80% done with only the installation of the backup system remaining.
The Manager for ICT Benjamin Cheboi said that the installation of the back up system and accompanying software will be completed shortly and thanked JICA Kenya for sponsoring the training and certification of ICT officers who will manage the system