Forest rangers, officers, leaders, women leaders, commune women and men, communities, peoples and nationalities of Ecuador are trained in diverse Community Forest Monitoring issues.

As part of the technical assistance that the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) provides to the Ministry of the environment, Water and Ecological Transition, within the framework of the Integral Amazon Program for the Conservation of Forests and Sustainable Production (PROAmazonía), the phase of strengthening community monitoring capacities is developed in its face-to-face modality,  with participants from communities in three provinces of the Amazon region: Sucumbíos, Morona Santiago and Zamora Chinchipe.

“The training events allow us to implement direct actions in our forests to monitor and identify if there are changes in their structure” commented Humberto Antuash from the Achuar Wampuik Community.

In this training process, information has been collected on the importance, perception and interests of women and men of the communities in relation to the areas of forest of which they depend both directly and indirectly. Daniel Grefa  from the Kichwa Itaya Community in Sucumbíos added that  “forest monitoring is interesting” as, thereby, the inhabitants of the Amazon forests can “find out what trees we have and where they are located”.

The workshops have been spaces for open discussion, where it has been promoted that the male and female participants become an integral part of the monitoring system design. The attendees have been able to express their comments and perspectives reharding the proposed methodologies, the forms for information gathering and validation of a new form on Non-timber Forest Products (PFNM in Spanish) overview.

The training workshops have been addressed through five theoretical-practical modules:

1. Community Monitoring
2. Community Control and Surveillance
3. Community Forest Monitoring
4. Forest Monitoring of Non-timber Forest Products
5. Basic mapping and use of Open Foris forms

During the training, the attendees have learned about the use of several tools, as well as useful information gathering for forest monitoring, both for overall forest monitoring and community monitoring and surveillance.

Photo: Jorge Armijos
Description: Archive image – Breast Height Diameter Measuring (DAP in spanish), with the help of a meter tool. Taisha Canton.

Photo: Jorge Armijos
Description: Archive image –Measuring of the tree heights with the help of a Sunto clinnometer. “Las Orquídeas”Community, Zurmi Parish, Nangaritza Canton.

Fotografía: Jorge Armijos
Descripción: Imagen de archivo -Medición  de árboles con ayuda de clinómetro Sunnto. Comunidad “Las Orquídeas”, Parroquia Zurmi, cantón Nangaritza

Authors:

• Mónica Ortiz – Community Monitoring Specialist Proyecto FAO-PROAmazonía Project
• Jorge Armijos,  FAO – PROAmazonía Forest Emmission Reference Level Specialist Technician.