Innovative Approaches for Monitoring Forest and Landscape Restoration
The newly established Community of Practice for Forest and Landscape Restoration (FLR) hosted its inaugural online knowledge-sharing forum: “Innovative Approaches for Monitoring Forest and Landscape Restoration” with a webinar and a facilitated email-based discussion. The activity was organized under the umbrella of the Collaborative Roadmap for Monitoring FLR in partnership with Global Partnership on Forest and Landscape Restoration (GPFLR).
The online community of practice allows practitioners to share and learn, while the knowledge-sharing forum was aimed at developing participants’ knowledge and capacity to understand monitoring in forest and landscape restoration. The webinar focused on:
- What can be learned from the presented FLR monitoring tools and approaches?
- Where should innovation efforts focus to further develop monitoring for FLR?
- Which innovative technologies currently exist for monitoring restoration?
Catalina Santamaria (Convention on Biological Diversity Secretariat & Vice-Chair of the GPFLR) underlined in her opening statement the ambitious restoration targets set by countries. Monitoring is critical to support implementation of restoration efforts to be able to communicate on achievements and report to national and international commitments.
Bernadette Arakwiye (WRI) presented Collect Earth and its use in monitoring restoration in Rwanda. Collect Earth enables data collection and analysis of high-resolution satellite imagery. It was developed under the Open Foris initiative by FAO and partners, and includes several free and open source tools, such as the application Collect Mobile. Through participatory ‘Mapathons’, stakeholders take part in mapping land use and land use change and interpreting data. Collect Earth facilitates the process but requires training in order to be used efficiently. Data must also be validated in the field. Collect Earth has proven particularly successful in landscapes with sparse tree cover. Arakwiye reported that, based on WRI’s experience, Collect Earth and the Open Foris suite are user-friendly, cost-effective and sustainable. She recommended the use of Collect Earth in collaboration with local stakeholders, who have good knowledge of the local context and environment, and developing their capacity.
Alan Grainger (University of Leeds) introduced Citizen Observatories, a form of participatory environmental monitoring with great potential for monitoring restoration. Citizen volunteers collect data using smartphones and are empowered in environmental monitoring. Data collected are transmitted to sensors, stored in databases and disseminated through website portals. Examples of Citizen Observatories include Cobweb, WeSenseIt, Landsense or Ground Truth 2.0. Citizen Observatories complement other forms of remote and ground-based monitoring, as they are better at monitoring challenging features of landscapes. Grainger clarified that the resolution of Citizen Observatories is suited to small-scale projects, but can easily be linked to regional and national scales. The Observatories require a large number of highly motivated citizens and capacity development efforts to improve data accuracy. Grainger concluded that accessible and user-friendly web interfaces are important, as well as dissemination of results.
Rakan A. Zahawi (University of Hawaii) discussed the use of lightweight Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones, for monitoring restoration in tropical forest ecosystems, building on results from a collaborative research project in Costa Rica. In the study, drones were pre-programmed to follow a specific flight path. A digital camera attached to the drone takes pictures toward the ground. The imagery captured is then processed using a particular type of software and is analyzed by trained users. Drones can capture data usually obtained through field surveys and offer a relatively low cost solution to obtain accurate field data. Zahawi said other advantages include: portability, the possibility for frequent monitoring, and use in rough terrain and remote places.
Speakers concluded that FLR is gaining momentum, and participants feel more empowered than previously. Practitioners are moving from resource-extensive monitoring approaches and limited data to lighter, agile technologies that can collect and harness vast amounts of data. These technological advances expand the scope and increase possibilities to monitor better and cheaper at multiple scales.
Community members agreed that people working on monitoring will need to use a combination of tools adapted to the specific context of different field settings. For example, drones could facilitate additional data combination, complementing other approaches. Through the feedback form, participants reported that the webinar and the overall forum helped them to better understand how the presented tools and methods work in monitoring landscape restoration, their possibilities and limitations. They also encouraged colleagues to document their innovative monitoring approaches and share the results.
All the recorded presentations at the webinar are available through the FLRM website and the knowledge-sharing forum’s results have been summarized. In email-based exchanges, participants called for a holistic approach, not only in restoration, but also in its monitoring. Expert participants listed main challenges encountered while monitoring FLR, suggested approaches to include project-level monitoring results into national systems, and listed key questions to ask and tools to use in monitoring.
For more information, please contact the FLRM team at [email protected]