Originally published on El pais: https://elpais.com/elpais/2020/07/20/planeta_futuro/1595242756_644516.html A menudo, los países se ven en una encrucijada en la que son conscientes de que el modelo de desarrollo que han seguido durante años ya no es válido. Son momentos de tomar decisiones difíciles: aunque siempre es tentador buscar los beneficios a corto plazo —sobre todo en contextos de pobreza— las apuestas a largo plazo son las que producen verdaderos cambios a mejor. Guinea Ecuatorial se encuentra hoy en una de esas encrucijadas: tras años de crecimiento económico exponencial ligado a la explotación del petróleo, el país tiene que reorientar su modelo de desarrollo para diversificar...

On World Youth Skills Day, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in collaboration with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) launched a new three-module e-learning course “Forests and transparency under the Paris Agreement”. The new course was announced during the webinar “Open and Transparent: Forest data setting the course for green future under the Paris Agreement” that was organized by FAO’s E-Learning Academy. The webinar highlighted the importance of the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) under Article 13 of the Paris Agreement, how the Capacity Building Initiative for Transparency...

The ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic pose an unprecedented challenge to virtually every aspect of society, including not only human health but also the economy and the environment. The impacts on forests, in particular, have implications for climate change. At a time of uncertainty and sweeping economic disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a reinforced, concerted global effort is more crucial than ever to maintain countries’ commitments to achieving national and international targets. Maintaining and expanding focus on these commitments at a time of increased pressure on forest resources can help not only to address deforestation but also to protect...

Join our online session “Forest data and transparency: ‘Zoom’ in on Costa Rica’s experience”: WHEN: Tuesday21 July 2020, 16:00-17:00 CEST WHERE: Zoom LANGUAGE: English REGISTER HERE   Costa Rica has made many efforts to monitor and conserve its forests. Since 2015, the Government has been developing a national system for monitoring land cover, land use and ecosystems (SIMOCUTE: Sistema Nacional de Monitoreo de la Cobertura y Uso de la Tierra y Ecosistemas) that facilitates the collection, integration, management, and dissemination of national-scale environmental data and information. SIMOCUTE has been developed through a participatory and interinstitutional process led by the National Center for Geo-environmental Information (CENIGA: Centro Nacional...

In September 2019, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) partnered with Planet to provide high spatial and temporal resolution satellite imagery to support the national forest monitoring systems of eight tropical forested countries: Chile, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Costa Rica, Ghana, Indonesia, Mexico and Mozambique. Just a few months later, these countries are already putting to work the combination of Planet’s high-resolution data and FAO’s geospatial platforms for a wide range of conservation applications. FAO supports countries all over the world in their efforts to sustainably manage forests and other ecosystems and natural resources, as...