Enhancing forest data management and analysis with Open Foris Arena
From September 25th to 28th, a significant Open Foris event took place at the FAO Rome Headquarters. The "Training in Forest Inventory Data Management and Analysis with Open Foris Arena and Arena Mobile" workshop was organized by the Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) team in collaboration with the National Forest Monitoring (NFM) team under the "AIM4Forests” and “Enhancing accuracy, accessibility and transparency of global forest resources data with technical innovations - a focus on joining forces in Africa" projects, with participants from Papua New Guinea (PNG), Kenya, Liberia, and Morocco.
The FAO forestry teams have played pivotal roles in providing technical assistance to over 50 countries worldwide, toward high-quality and robust information on forest resources with the overarching goal to develop modern, transparent, reliable, and accessible National Forest Monitoring Systems. This has been achieved in part by providing free and open-source tools and platforms, which facilitate the collection of up-to-date and reliable data on forest resources through remote sensing and field inventories.
Open Foris is a part of FAO’s open-source digital public goods initiative. It is a set of tools and platforms that have been widely adopted by countries for forest and land monitoring applications. To date, Open Foris has accumulated over 30,000 users in 180 countries, enabling stakeholders to acquire comprehensive information on forest and natural resources more efficiently.
As a result, in the last ten years, 90% of countries completing their REDD+ Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) reporting to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have used Open Foris tools and platforms, paving the way for improved climate change mitigation plans and more informed land-use policies.
The training held last month in FAO Headquarters, was an opportunity to familiarize and test the revamped version of the newest Open Foris tool: Arena.
Arena is a cutting-edge cloud-based platform for storing, managing, and analyzing data from forest inventories and other field data collection campaigns. This online tool allows for customizable data structures, as well as multilingual and multicycle data management. The platform also facilitates user-friendly integration of data recording, querying, validation, access to high-resolution satellite imagery, and simultaneous processing.
The workshop provided an opportunity for experts working on forest assessment, with specific emphasis on planning or implementing National Forest Inventories (NFIs), to explore the potential of Arena and the Arena Mobile. The four-day program, including one day of on-site visits to the Parco Della Cafarella in Rome, was an opportunity to test the mobile application and gather valuable feedback on technical issues requiring improvement.
Arena is a tool of great interest to the participants
The participants at the workshop had much to say about their experiences with the Arena tool. They expressed their appreciation for the tool's user-friendly useability, multi-dimensional functionality, and ability to streamline data management processes.
Participants found Arena's features to be especially valuable in ensuring data accuracy and managing different phase with data within a single platform. They were very interested in the flexibility of transforming data from recording to estimations. All participants expressed that the training was highly helpful for their jobs, and they plan to apply it in the field as well. Participants have requested additional support to implement Arena for forest inventories, including more capacity development activities on Arena and Arena mobile.
Mannuel Wakol, Inventory Officer from the PNG Forest Authority, emphasized the significance of Open Foris Arena. "We really appreciate the training and would like to implement Arena in PNG’s Forest inventories", he stated.
PNG's progress in REDD+ using Open Foris
After the workshop, a delegation of PNG presented their significant strides in its efforts to combat deforestation and promote sustainable forest management. In the recent years, PNG has become a key FAO partner, actively embracing various Open Foris tools such as Collect, Collect Mobile, Calc, Collect Earth, and SEPAL.
As a result, PNG has successfully completed all four REDD+ design elements, including the National REDD+ Strategy, National Forest Monitoring System, National Forest Reference Level, and Safeguards Information System, as outlined in the Warsaw Framework. Furthermore, they have submitted their 1st Biennial Update Report (BUR), including the REDD+ Annex, in 2019 and followed up with the 2nd BUR in 2022. Additionally, PNG submitted the 2nd Forest Reference Level (FRL) in January 2023, further solidifying its commitment to addressing climate change through forest conservation.
Open Foris tools have contributed significantly to the successful implementation of REDD+ and the National Forest Inventory in the country. And now, with the introduction of the revamped version of Arena and Arena Mobile, the PNG Forest Authority plans to leverage these technologies to facilitate complementary NFI assessments scheduled before the end of 2023.
A parallel hands-on training sessions was conducted with local IT, GIS, and climate change experts from PNG aimed at upgrading their Climate Change and Forest Monitoring web-portal that FAO has supported to implement in the country. Activities included the installation of a new base operating system and improvements to the system infrastructure, including the user interface. These enhancements will improve both the user experience and the content management capabilities, empowering the PNG team to autonomously publish Satellite Land Monitoring System-related data.
Photo credit: © FAO/Cenciarelli