In November 2016, the Ministry of the Environment made official the REDD+ Action Plan “Bosques para el Buen Vivir,” whose objective is to contribute to national efforts to reduce deforestation and forest degradation through conservation, sustainable forest management, and the optimization of other land uses to reduce pressure on forests. In this way, the REDD+ Action Plan contributes to the reduction of Greenhouse Gas emissions.

The implementation of the REDD+ Action Plan requires the support of a computer system that allows it to keep a centralized record of the programs, projects and implementation plans that contribute to meeting the goals of the REDD+ Action Plan. This system should also make it possible to follow-up and monitor implementation progress, while enabling consultation and publication of information related to national actions and their physical and budgetary progress.

In this context, the REDD+ Measures and Actions Management System (SIGMA) is conceived as the computer system that supports the management of the implementation of the REDD+ Action Plan in Ecuador, which will be part of the Unified Environmental Information System (SUIA) of the Ministry of Environment and Water and will be operated by the technicians of the Climate Change Mitigation Directorate.

Photographs: Lorena Acosta

Description: SIGMA forms validation workshop

The Amazon Forest Conservation and Sustainable Production Program – PROAmazonía leads the implementation of SIGMA, and since 2018 has been working on its design, through the survey of processes and the implementation of workshops, to validate that it meets the functionality required to monitor the implementation of REDD+.

On March 10, 2021, the PROAmazonía technical team in charge of the development of SIGMA, met with the representatives of the Climate Change Mitigation Directorate to review the first module of the system, which allows the registration of implementation plans, programs and projects, and validated that its design is user-friendly and that it allows the compilation of information, both on actions and budgets, that will help to follow-up and monitor progress in the implementation of REDD+ in Ecuador.

Author: Lorena Acosta, Technical Specialist in Information Technology and Processes for REDD+