Keeping Latin America in the green: A new toolbox for assessing forest conservation policies

Forest deforestation and degradation in Latin America remains alarmingly high. This has consequences at a variety of scales – from contributing to global biodiversity loss to disrupting local hydrologic services.

With limited resources available, there is a need to get the most “bang-for-the-buck” with investments in forest conservation. One way to address this challenge is through the development of web-based monitoring and evaluation programs. NASA SERVIR Applied Sciences Team (AST) member, Principal Investigator (PI) Allen Blackman recently completed a project that resulted in creating two such webtools: the Forest Conservation Targeting Tool (FCTT) and the Forest Conservation Evaluation Tool (FCET).

The main goal of these tools is to help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of forest conservation policies in Latin America. The targeting tool (FCTT) addresses where future forest conservation efforts should be directed to maximize resources. The evaluation tool (FCET) addresses the question of the efficacy of specific forest conservation policies. FCET takes into account the effect of existing policies in stemming deforestation and forest degradation in a particular area of interest.

Originally created to cover Central America and Mexico, the toolkit now has been expanded to include all of Latin America – from Mexico to the Patagonia. The FCTT has already been used in Honduras to target household beneficiaries of improved cookstoves through the PROFOGONES Project. Both tools can be used by the public via an easy-to-use interface. The intended users for these tools are forest managers, and anyone invested in forest conservation initiatives, selecting sites for future conservation endeavors, and/or evaluating current policies. Additionally, a video tutorial from Blackman is available to help users get started using the toolkit.

As SERVIR expands to Amazonia, this toolkit can provide valuable information to SERVIR-Amazonia consortium members and stakeholders during their planning process.

The SERVIR-Amazonia Hub is based at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), in collaboration with the Asociación para la Conservación de la Cuenca Amazónica (ACCA), Spatial Informatics Group (SIG), and the Instituto de Manejo e Certificação Florestal e Agrícola (Imaflora). Broader SERVIR-Amazonia Consortium members represent a mix of international, regional and national NGOs, local and US universities, government ministries and research institutes across the Amazon Basin.

The development of these web tools was a team effort lead by Resources for the Future in collaboration with the University of Maryland. Funding was provided primarily by NASA SERVIR, and from contributions of SESYNC, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the Inter-American Development Bank.