Islamabad
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam Tuesday said the monitoring of forest resources through remotely sensed data backed by field-based observations, is vital for effective assessment of greenhouse gas emissions and their removals from atmosphere to slow down global warming.
Addressing the 11th meeting of the National Steering Committee on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) held here, he said that sustained monitoring of forest resources and changes in forest lands and their overall outlook is at the heart of efforts for stemming deforestation, degradation of forests and environmentally-harmful forest land use changes.
The event was jointly organised by the Ministry of Climate Change and the UN-sponsored Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) Initiative and Pakistan REDD+ Readiness Programme.
The amount of information gathered during forest inventories has thus grown rapidly and has, in turn, help improve ability of forest scientists, researcher and policymakers to survey and manage many services, such as: biodiversity, ecosystem restoration and carbon sequestration from atmosphere to slow down climate change and reduce climate shocks in shape of floods, heatwaves, cyclones, crop failures, wildfires and loss of biodiversity, the PM’s aide Malik Amin elaborated.
Malik Amin highlighted that technology development, adaptation to country circumstances and its adoption by existing national forest systems offer a promising potential to improve accuracy of field measurements in forests, reduce the time and the costs accruing from field sampling activities.
New technologies could be, however, also a workable way for supporting the implementation of transparent national forest monitoring systems for sustainable forest conservation and management, he added.
The PM’s aide said that today the adoption, adaptation, and viability of technologies by national and subnational entities, private companies, research and academic organisations, NGOs, and civil society could also face many constraints that limit use of such technologies.
PM’s aide said that scientific forest monitoring was considered globally of paramount importance for measuring progress of any country’s achievements for international reporting and better planning for forest conservation and their sustainable use.—APP
