The World Resources Institute focuses on the intersection of the environment and socio-economic development and has been working intensively in the Congo Basin since the late 1990s. Globally, WRI’s programs address six urgent challenges: forests, water, food, climate change, energy, cities, and transport.

WRI’s work in the Congo Basin focuses in particular on land, governance, and forests.

WRI works with partners in government, business, and civil society to ensure access to high-quality information, tools, and training on forests and land use.

WRI has been working with the Congo Basin Forest Partnership to achieve outcomes on the ground through two major initiatives: Global Forest Watch and the Congo Basin Forest Atlases.

 

Global Forest Watch (GFW) is a dynamic online forest monitoring and alert system that empowers people everywhere to better manage forests. Global Forest Watch unites satellite technology, open data, and crowdsourcing to guarantee access to timely and reliable information about forests. GFW is free and follows an open data approach in putting decision-relevant information in the hands of governments, companies, NGOs, and the public. GFW is supported by a diverse partnership of organizations that contribute data, technical capabilities, funding, and expertise.

Global Forest Watch provides a wealth of forest information for the Congo Basin, including tree cover loss and gain data from the University of Maryland and Google at 30 meter resolution, monthly Forest Monitoring for Action (FORMA) tree cover loss alerts, daily NASA active fire alerts, and land use data on protected areas, logging, plantations, mining, and more. GFW also does in-depth regional work in collaboration with Ministries of Forest and Environment, OSFAC, the Jane Goodall Institute, UNEP, and other key regional partners.  

 

 

GFW MAP focused on Congo Basin Link: http://cdb.io/1tDmtSd

 

Congo Basin Forest Atlases

The Congo Basin Forest Atlases are living forest information systems, merging the latest technology in remote sensing and GIS with ground-truthing to monitor and sustainably manage the region’s forests. The first Forest Atlas system was established within the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife of Cameroon in 2005, and since then Atlases have been developed for other Congo Basin countries, including Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.

 

 

Cameroon

WRI partners with the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife (MINFOF) to develop the Interactive Forest Atlas of Cameroon, and to build the capacity of forest stakeholders in remote sensing, GIS, and forest information management. This partnership aims to strengthen forest management and land use planning by bringing all major land use categories onto the same platform.

 

Central African Republic

WRI partners with the Ministry of Waters, Forests, Hunting and Fishing (MEFCP) to develop the Interactive Forest Atlas of the Central African Republic.

 

Congo

WRI partners with the Ministry of Forest Economy and Sustainable Development (MEFDD) to develop the Forest Atlas of the Republic of Congo.

 

Democratic Republic of Congo

WRI partners with the Ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation and Tourism (MECNT) to develop the Interactive Forest Atlas of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

 

Equatorial Guinea

WRI is partnering with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) to develop the Interactive Forest Atlas of Equatorial Guinea.

 

Gabon

Interactive Atlas coming soon!

 

WRI is partnering with the Ministry of Forest, Environment and Natural Resource Protection (MEFPRN) to develop the Interactive Forest Atlas of Gabon.

The World Resources Institute and partners are proud to achieve many outcomes across the Congo Basin, including:

• Vast increase in access to forest information—before the Forest Atlases there was virtually no public access to logging permits or land use rights across the Congo Basin, now this critical information is available for the entire region;
• Improved coordination between land allocation administrations—starting strictly with the forest sector, the Atlas platform has recently expanded to integrate mining and agriculture in Gabon, Congo and Cameroon – in support of improved land use planning.
• Substantial increases in local technical capacity—more than 1000 forest stakeholders have received substantial technical training in GIS, Remote Sensing and forest information management over the past 10 years;
• Measured reductions in illegal logging—identification of irregular logging roads, overlapping land use allocation and equipping Ministry of Forestry agents and monitoring NGOs with sophisticated tools and methods have contributed to significant reductions in “out of boundary” industrial logging across the Congo Basin;
• Significant increases in community forests—in part due to the improved access to information and land use planning offered through the Forest Atlases in Cameroon, local communities have been able to vastly increase the amount of land under formalized Community Forests;
• Cancelation of logging titles in DRC—WRI’s Forest Atlas work as advisor to the forest title review process in DRC provided the technical basis for the cancellation of nearly two-thirds of the logging titles in that country in 2009;
• In addition, Atlas products have been used to advance natural resource management efforts by more than one hundred other organizations… 

Visit the World Resources Institute at www.wri.org