Monrovia, Liberia - February 16, 2021 – The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) conducted a Community Forest Management Planning workshop in Konobo, Grand Gedeh County. The training workshop took place in Zhia town where FDA led field teams met with members of the Konobo Authorized Forest Community and trained them in forest enumeration techniques. The team led by the REDD+ National Project Coordinator, Mr Saah A. David Jr. and the FAO’s Chief Technical Advisor (CTA), Jonathan Roberts was joined by Isaac Kannah and Mr. John Negatus Wright both Measurement Reporting and Verification Officers (MRV) 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. Approximately 21 community members attended the training (4 female and 17 male), following which the participants were separated into groups and are now conducting field enumeration activities supervised by FDA and FAO staff in the adjoining forest. The training serves as a pre-cursor to the full enumeration of the Konobo Authorized Forest.

The fieldwork component 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 to the work supported under the Technical Assistance (TA) Agreement entitled "The Design and Implementation of a MRV Framework for REDD+ and Development of FREL/FRL for REDD+ in Liberia". The extension builds on the work undertaken supporting the National Forest Inventory but shifts the focus to the local scale. This workshop was the final training of a three county programme 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.