The ten member countries of COMIFAC had a mid-term evaluation of a joint project on Friday October 11, 2013.
Countries of the Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC) have described as satisfactory strides recorded half way gone into an 18-month project, "National Forestry Monitoring System (NFMS)" drafted within the framework of the Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) project for the Congo Basin forest zone. National experts, focal points and other stakeholders of the project meeting in Yaounde from October 7-11, 2013 to evaluate the path covered already in nine months, noted at term that most of the countries had effectively taken off and trained people to pilot the project to a successful end.
Presiding over the information-sharing forum that rounded off five-days of evaluation last Friday October 11, Cameroon's Minister of the Environment, Nature Protection and Sustainable Development, Pierre Hele, said since launching the project, Cameroon has been redoubling efforts to reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses, conserve and sustainably manage the forest as well as enhance forest carbon stocks as part of international climate mitigation efforts, hallmarks of the project.
According to Achille B. Momo, National Expert, MRV Project, UN-REDD Programme, Cameroon has already put in place a thematic group which will be working on tele-detection and geographic information system as well as a national forest inventory. "The two groups are working to develop a plan of action. We still need to meet with this thematic group to fine-tune the plan of action that will give the detail activities and budget," he said. After 18 months, Achille said, the plan of action that will be developed will become an advocacy tool to be submitted to the African Development Bank and the Congo Basin Forest Fund for funding to start implementing the National Forestry Monitoring System. "A good monitoring system will help the country to benefit from the Redd+ process which demands the amount of gas sequestrated within a year (carbon) whose price will be negotiated in the carbon market, through which agriculture would be supported," the National Expert observed.
Like Achille, the Country Representative of FAO, Mai Moussa Abari, said the project can also help the country to know how the territory is being managed in terms of human activity on the land surface.
