As the most populated country in Africa, Nigeria is facing enormous pressure on its natural resources. According to Global Forest Resources Assessment 2015, the current deforestation rate is estimated at 3.5% - one of the highest in the world. The Federal Government of Nigeria is determined to protect and sustainably manage its remaining forest resources and, therefore, embarked upon REDD+ with support of the UN-REDD Programme – which supported a national programme from 2012 to 2016, and the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF).

Overall, the country has been making steady progress since 2010, paving its way for the implementation of REDD+ by taking advantage of available open source data and tools, increasing visibility and understanding of its rich forest resources.

Building on the support received over the years, early in 2019, Nigeria submitted a national forest reference emission level (FREL) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) with financial support from the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) and consequent technical support from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) requested by the Government of Nigeria. As one of the four pillars of this Warsaw Framework for REDD+, the FREL will serve Nigeria as a benchmark for assessing the performance in implementing its REDD+ activities.

The submission proceeded a sub-national FREL submission in 2018 for Cross-River State (CRS), a pilot site where Nigeria is starting REDD+ implementation. The state contains more than 50% of high tropical forest in the country and is often referred to as the Amazon of Nigeria. The national FREL used a methodology consistent with that of the sub-national FREL; that is, the methodology was scaled up to the national level while the country at the same time applied some improvements based on lessons learned from the 2018 technical assessment of the subnational FREL submission. The updated FREL was based on the results of national forest inventory activities as well as spatial data on deforestation and forest degradation collected under Nigeria’s improved National Forest Monitoring System (NFMS).

In 2018, several trainings were held in Nigeria to enhance the country’s land monitoring capacity, specifically in areas such as the production of activity data for the estimation of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. Nigerian experts were trained on the use of System for Earth Observation Data Access, Processing and Analysis for Land Monitoring (SEPAL), an innovative open-source cloud-based platform that allows countries to access satellite data faster and easier, paving the way for improved climate change mitigation plans and better informed land-use policies.

Continue reading at: https://www.unredd.net/announcements-and-news/2949-latest-frel-submission-shows-nigeria-s-progress-on-monitoring-forest-resources.html

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