GFC reports slow year

Dec 25, 2017 News

– gives new administration time to ‘discuss’ way forward with Norway

The Guyana Forestry Commission (GFS) recently made public its sixth annual performance report on Interim Measures for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Plus (REDD+), under Guyana’s Monitoring Reporting and Verification System (MRVS).

Chair of the Guyana Forestry Commission Board, Jocelyn Dow

Among the subjects that were highlighted in the report for the period January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2016, it was noted that Year six’ (2017) accommodated slower MRVS to permit the new administration of Norway to discuss options for the way forward on Guyana’s MRVS with the Government.
The government of Norway held their elections in September 11, 2017.
Additionally, this publication understands that changes in the forest were being monitored during this period using Landsat and Sentinel images (these are images of various satellites that are used to gather data of Earth’s land surface and coastal regions). As such, the report noted that only areas of deforestation were mapped.
However, the report went into detail explaining that between the periods of January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2016, “several areas have been progressively improved over the period that interim measures are recorded”.
Additionally, the resolution of the technology used, hindered it from conducting the national scale monitoring of the impact of forest degradation.
As a result of this, further investment in data analysis, reporting tools and methodologies to monitor changes are planned for Year 7 (2018).
The GFC has already drafted a vigorous MRVS that can spatially account for the area of deforestation and degradation.
The Commission had planned for the refinement of methods to quantify afforestation. This was since the regenerating of non-forest areas and studies showed the carbon accumulation rate on abandoned mining sites. According to the report, “This work links in with Guyana’s planned mining reclamation project and the consideration of appropriate emission factors”.
Additionally, the Guyana Forestry Commission had an integration of new satellite sensors into the MRV. These included ‘Sentinel 2A’ which was proposed prior to the integration of the future of MRV reporting and ‘Planet Labs’ in addition to RADAR.

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