Tanzania, one of the UN-REDD Programme pilot countries, has been developing several MRV tools and methodologies over the past year, with the support of various international initiatives. During the first week of February, the Government of Tanzania represented by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Forestry and Beekeeping Division organized a measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) workshop in Tanzania, with the support of the UN-REDD Programme.  It was to share experiences and results from actual projects in the country and to harmonize ongoing initiatives in other REDD+ countries.

George Matiko, Principal Information Officer for Tanzania’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, wears his pride for the UN-REDD Programme at the MRV workshop held in Dar es Salaam in February.

Nearly 60 people from various organizations and agencies attended the workshop, which took place in Dar es Salaam 3-5 February. Among the list of represented organization were: Tanzania’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Norwegian Space Centre, Norwegian Computing Centre, Global Witness, FAO’s National Forestry Resources Monitoring and Assessment NAFORMA) and its Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) Remote Sensing Survey, the UN-REDD Programme, UNEP’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC), The World Bank, The Clinton Climate Initiative, the Forest Carbon Tracking Task (GEO FCT)and Google Earth.

Key outputs from the workshop included the decision to enhance coordination among various MRV initiatives in Tanzania and to develop the National Forest Inventory by NAFORMA, using tools such as LIDAR, estimations from remote sensing, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and carbon models. Google announced its support to provide NAFORMA with data collector handheld sets, to test new technologies that can improve data collection and data integrity from the National Forest Inventory.

Workshop participants agreed that Tanzania’s MRV efforts could be used as a case study for other REDD+ countries, given that MRV initiatives in Tanzania are on track to be ready for a post-2012 agreement.