The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) have concluded a Community Forest Management Planning workshop in Konobo, Grand Gedeh County, that trained 21 community members on forest enumeration techniques to properly manage community forests.

The training workshop took place recently in Zhia town, Grand Gedeh County.

The team, led by the REDD+ National Project Coordinator, Saah A. David Jr. and the FAO’s Chief Technical Advisor (CTA), Jonathan Roberts, was joined by Isaac Kannah and John Negatus Wright both Measurement Reporting and Verification (MRV) officers from FDA and LISGIS respectively.

The CTA and MRV officers appeared on a local radio station (Smile FM) to help promote and educate communities regarding the field activities.

Following the training, the participants were separated into groups and assigned to conduct field enumeration activities supervised by FDA.

The fieldwork component of the exercise is expected to take just over a month as the community members will need to undergo training in the fieldwork methodology as well as the guidelines prepared for the preparation of the forest management plan.

The objective of the training was to support the implementation of the extension, a work supported under the Technical Assistance (TA) Agreement entitled “The Design and Implementation of an MRV Framework for REDD+ and Development of FREL/FRL for REDD+ in Liberia”.

This workshop was the final training of a three-county program that was previously conducted in River Gee and Lofa counties.

FAO continues to stress the importance of helping to conserve and preserve the forests of Liberia in collaboration with the United Nations REDD Programme.

Originally published on: https://www.liberianobserver.com/news/21-rural-residents-train-in-community-forest-management-in-grand-gedeh/ 

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