Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) organized a three-day workshop aimed at training officers from the Department of Forestry and Range Resources on the methodology of trial Full-scale Forestry Inventory. The training is part of activities for the Project for Enhancing National Monitoring System for the Promotion of Sustainable Natural Resource Management (NFMS) which is based on the Record of Discussion signed between the Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism (MEWT) in November 2012. The objective of the project is to ensure that the state of forests in the country is accurately updated through regular monitoring utilizing the national forest monitoring system.
The workshop was held from Tuesday until Friday at Mmokolodi Game Reserve in the outskirts of Gaborone and brought together a total of 20 field officers from the ministry, picked from different parts of the country and was facilitated and sponsored by JICA. Three technical experts from JICA, Nishio Akinori, Yasuhisa Motohiro and Sugawara Fumio lectured the participants on the practice of data processing, methodological aspects of pre-inventory survey and trial full-scale inventory survey. The training was not only confined to theory as participants took part in field practice on forest regeneration, data collection on dead wood, tag setting and distance measurement at the slope. The partnership between JICA and the Department of Forestry and Range Resources is expected to last for duration of three years (July 2013- July 2016) and is designed to make sure Sustainable Forest Management in the country is promoted by sharing and utilizing information obtained through national forest monitoring among relevant stakeholders including government and local communities.
For his part, the Project Manager and Principal Forest and Range Resources officer Motsheganyi Sekgopo lauded his department’s partnership with JICA and said the technical assistance will go a long way in making their mandate attainable. JICA has also procured vehicles and technical equipment for the three-year project.
