Team leaders for the National Forest Inventory (NFI) scheduled to take place in the ensuing months met on Friday 7th February at the Forestry Training Centre (FTC) in Coloisuva for a refresher course on the importance of a NFI.
The NFI is usually conducted after a 10-year period to record the impact of development on the remaining natural forest. The NFI 2020, scheduled for late February/early March, will update the forest information that was last collected in the NFI 2016.
The leaders are part of a group of 10 teams that have been appointed by the REDD+ Unit, Ministry of Forestry to embark on a NFI within the context of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, forest conservation, sustainable management of forests and carbon stock enhancement (REDD+).
Viliame Tupua, the Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) Specialist within the REDD+ Unit who organised this one day workshop stressed to the team leaders on the importance of gathering correct and factual data from the ground.
He informed the team leaders that they needed to plan with their members the tasks for each day and communicate this to their respective team members.
“You all need to consult with the Inventory Officer about the operational plan. You need to ensure that field equipment is complete and all in good working condition. You also must ensure that you consult with landowners and ask for permission first to work on their land as well as seek their assistance in locating the sampling unit,” he said.
The goal of a NFI is to generate information for decision making, monitoring in forestry and related sectors on Greenhouse Gas (GHG) inventory and ensure that it fulfils the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) requirement of completeness.
Within the context of REDD+, a NFI entails the integration of agriculture, land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) sectors from previous guidelines (2003 GPG-LULUCF) into one sector called the agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU).
The AFOLU involves six land use categories which covers emissions and removals from the terrestrial biosphere and provides carbon and GHG estimation methodologies for carbon pools in land-use categories.
The six land use classifications include Forest land, Cropland, Grassland, Wetland, Settlement and Other land.
Background
Fiji became a participant country in the FCPF in 2013 and a year later in December 2014, the FCPF authorized a grant funding of US$3.8 million to support Fiji’s preparations in engaging in a future REDD+ performance-based system. The grant agreement for the Fiji’s Readiness-Preparation Proposal (R-PP) readiness fund was signed in May 2015. An additional $2million was provided in 2017. This additional funding was to assist the Fiji National REDD+ Programme to carry out more awareness programmes to stakeholders and to strengthen the capacity of existing institutions in the forestry and agriculture related sectors dealing with sustainable land management and sustainable forest management. Fiji is now in the process of its second phase which involves the Emissions Reduction Program being implemented in 20 districts in three islands only – Vanua Levu, Viti Levu and Taveuni.
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