Rwanda Forestry Authority (RFA’s Research Division in collaboration with a research team from the department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management of the University of Copenhagen (UCPH) in Copenhagen- Denmark, Centre for GIS and Remote Sensing of the University of Rwanda (CGIS-UR), Rwanda, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Rwanda office, has organized a two-day workshop that took place in Kigali.

The workshop began from 5^th to 6^th July 2022 and brought together different partners in forestry sector to exchange ideas on new technologies for the automation of forests and individual trees inventory and mapping, monitoring and management.

 In his opening remarks, the Rwanda Forestry Authority’s acting Director General, Spridio Nshimiyimana appreciated all participants for their presence and the ongoing technologies contribution to sustainability of forestry sector.

“I would like to appreciate all of you for your presence to sustain the development of the forestry sector by using different technologies… The Rwanda Forestry Authority wants to embrace all our partners’ efforts developing different technologies of management, monitoring and evaluation of forests interventions.”  Said the  acting Director General, Spridio Nshimiyimana

As was scheduled, the partners presented different technologies and platforms are using to monitor forests for sustainable development particularly, presentations on a newly developed technological frameworks which automatically detect trees of all sizes and estimate their characteristics, such as crown size, height, biomass, and carbon stocks from satellite and aerial images, in all ecosystem types.

Rwanda Forestry Authority (RFA), in collaborative efforts with ENABEL, established and currently uses the Forest Monitoring and Evaluation System (FMES) to regularly evaluate, quantify, and monitor forests.

Participants agreed to work together as stakeholders to inventory, map, and characterise every individual tree in Rwanda by the end of 2023.

Rwanda is one of the countries at the forefront of the fight against climate change. This has been demonstrated planned landscape restoration efforts and pledges, such as the target of having 30 percent of the country covered by forests, which was achieved in 2019; the target of restoring 2 million hectares under the Bonn Challenge, among other commitments and efforts. For becoming a hub of technology, Rwanda has integrated technologies in all sectors to facilitate in service delivery as a quick tool to get to development.