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Colombian forest monitoring system: Assessing deforestation in an environmental complex country


Colombia is a key actor related with the adoption of the relevant UNFCC provisions referred in the context of obtaining result-based payments for REDD+ actions. Since 2012, the Colombian Forest Monitoring System (SMByC, Spanish acronym) has generated wall-to-wall historical information about the deforestation process over the last 27 years at national and regional levels. The SMByC generates a methodology that integrates tools for the preprocessing and semi-automated processing of satellite imagery to detect and quantify the loss of forest cover by deforestation. Also, the SMByC has done an extensive literature review, collecting qualitative and quantitative information to identify how the drivers of deforestation (illicit crops, illegal mining and postconflict scenario) could result in an increased forest lost during a postconflict scenario. Given that Colombia is a country conformed by regions that have differentially socioeconomic and environmental conditions, the study shows how the methods could generate official information and specifies the context of deforestation process of those regions.


Country
Colombia
Language
English
Resource type
Case studies


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