CIDT and project partners FODER and World Resources Institute led a session on Independent Forest Monitoring (IFM) at the Chatham House Illegal Logging update in June 2017.
Following introduction by the Chair of the Session, Duncan Brack, Dr Aurelian Mbzibain in a scene-setting presentation, gave participants an overview of the state of forest monitoring in the Congo Basin and implications for forest management and due diligence decision making.
Through its ongoing Citizen Voices for Change: Forest Monitoring in the Congo Basin (CV4C) project, CIDT and its partners FODER and World Resources Institute (WRI) led the session on the role forest monitoring in improving transparency in the forest sector.
FODER (Cameroon) presented a case study on the impact of the SNOIE independent forest monitoring (IFM) system, while WRI introduced the Open Timber Portal (OTP). The OTP is being developed as part of the European Union funded CV4C project and will provide a one stop shop for forest monitoring data from project partners in the Congo Basin. Then the discussions centred on improving the credibility and practice of civil society led forest monitoring in order to increase the uptake of IFM outputs by stakeholders.
This two-day meeting (19-20 June 2017) organised by the Think Tank Chatham House, is part of a series of illegal logging update meetings that bring together participants from civil society, industry and governments from around the world. It brought together over 250 participants with the aim of providing an update on global efforts to improve forest governance and reduce illegal logging. Topics on the agenda included:
- Timber trade regulations – approaches from around the world;
- Update on the Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) action plan and Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) countries;
- Recent developments in China to tackle the trade in illegal timber and promote responsible overseas investment;
- Improving transparency through forest monitoring and satellite technology.
You can download the meeting summary report and presentations from the Illegal Logging Portal.
