Zambia paves the way for advanced forest monitoring with innovative assessment solutions
©FAO/ Wesley Roberts
Tropical forests play a crucial role in tackling climate change, providing critical ecosystem services that support global resilience, food security, and sustainable livelihoods. To meet international commitments like the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), countries need robust forest data, effective monitoring systems, responsive forest-related policies, and stakeholder collaboration.
Through the UK-funded Accelerating Innovative Monitoring for Forests (AIM4Forests) programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is supporting countries increase transparency in forest monitoring by supporting countries in creating high-quality forest data, through innovative technical solutions, tailored e-learning and webinars. AIM4Forests supports Zambia in strengthening its national forest monitoring system – a vital step in addressing deforestation and climate change.
Zambia has made significant progress in forest monitoring. Key milestones include submitting an updated national Forest Reference Emissions Level (FREL) to the UNFCCC in 2019. These efforts have enhanced Zambia’s measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) activities and improved the national forest monitoring system (NFMS).
In August 2024, the AIM4Forests programme hosted a workshop to assess Zambia’s NFMS and develop a roadmap for improvement. Participants included FAO experts and representatives from government agencies, NGOs, and development partners, such as the Zambia Forestry Department, Ministry of Green Economy and Environment, National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), USAID, CIFOR-ICRAF, and others.
During the workshop, two tools were used to assess Zambia’s NFMS: the National Forest Monitoring System Assessment Tool, which assessed Zambia’s NFMS based on FAO’s Voluntary Guidelines for National Forest Monitoring (VGNFM); and the Screening tool for MRV and carbon accounting requirements, used to measure Zambia’s readiness to meet voluntary carbon market standards like ART-TREES and the Verified Carbon Standards (VCS) Jurisdictional and Nested Framework.
The assessments helped to:
map past and ongoing NFMS efforts along with its institutional and legal frameworks;
identify technical and functional gaps, particularly in meeting MRV requirements; and
prioritize actions to strengthen Zambia’s NFMS and MRV.
The workshop outcomes led to the development of a roadmap to create a sustainable, integrated NFMS with reliable forest data, paving the way for climate and carbon finance opportunities.
This roadmap includes the following activities:
conduct a data needs assessment to identify stakeholder needs and reporting requirements, informing capacity development interventions to support Zambia’s forest monitoring commitments;
strengthen Zambia’s expertise on carbon markets through continued AIM4Forests support, including technical exchanges, workshops, and training on carbon removals, ART/TREES criteria, and forest monitoring for effective market participation; and
undertake a comprehensive carbon strategy and data screening exercise to assess emissions reductions across jurisdictions, identify programs, explore High forest, low deforestation (HFLD) feasibility, and align with ART-TREES and VCS standards.
By leveraging innovative solutions and strong partnerships with the AIM4Forests programme, Zambia is advancing its NFMS, driving progress toward sustainable development and meaningful climate action.