Brussels, March 12, 2019, The Earth and Life institute of the Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), has officially joined the members of the Congo Basin Forests Partnership (CBFP). As part of the accession process, the Earth and Life institute of the UCLouvain submitted the required documents and agreed to abide by the CBFP members’ cooperation framework in promoting sustainable management of forest ecosystems in Central Africa.

The Earth and Life lnstitute is one of the biggest research institute of the Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain). The Earth and Life lnstitute aims at understanding the functioning of our planet for the development of sustainable solutions. At the convergence between societal issues and scientific challenges, the research institute has the ambition to address the complexity of the Earth related systems at multiple spatial and temporal scales. lt is part of the Université catholique de Louvain, a Belgian university at the forefront of innovation and excellence in education and research. The University involves more than 28.000 students of 127 different nationalities and a staff of about 5.700 teachers, researchers and administrative and technical collaborators.

The Earth and Life lnstitute covers the research in forestry science, climatology, land use change and satellite remote sensing. The laboratory in Environmetrics and Geomatics (UCLouvain­ Geomatics) is one of the four founding members of the Observatoire des Forêts d'Afrique Centrale (OFAC) and has been actively contributing to this Observatory since the early days in 2005. As key scientific partner of the EU-FORAF/CEOFAC projects, UCLouvain-Geo matics has made available its expertise to build the capacities of national institutions in the fields of forest mapping by satellite remote sensing and information system development.

Earth and Life lnstitute also provided numerous vegetation maps well-known in the Congo Basin. These contributions including the forest areas statistics and the first national deforestation estimate, have been extensively highlighted in the successive State of the Forests report s delivered to the COMIFAC and the international community.

Currently UCLouvain-Geomatics is a consortium member of the European project 'Renforcement et Institutionnalisation de l'Observatoire des Forêts d'Afrique Centrale' (RIOFAC).

The Earth and Life lnstitute is more specifically in charge of the forest data analytics and the exploitation of the new European Sentinel satellites to produce the first high resolution regional map of the Congo Basin forest types through a close collaboration with the national experts of each COMIFAC country and capacity-building workshops.

The Kingdom of Belgium Facilitator of the Congo Basin Forest Partnership is very pleased to welcome Earth and Life institute of the Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain) as a new CBFP member.

Welcome to our new partner!

Contacts:

Pr.   Pierre    Defourny  

 Pierre.Defourny@uclouvain.be

with    cc:

Aurelie.Bellavia@uclouvain.be

For more information, please visit the Earth and Life institute of the Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain)