The Forest Carbon, Markets and Communities (FCMC) Program has been providing support to Colombia on the development of the national measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) system for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation; and the Role of Conservation, Sustainable Management of Forests, and Enhancement of Forest Carbon Stocks (REDD+). Part of this support was for the development and testing of a near real-time alerts system for monitoring deforestation and providing fire alerts, based on work by the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Research (IDEAM) national forest monitoring system and Conservation International (CI). This activity was conducted in partnership with the CorpoAmazonia Corporación Autonomia Regional (CAR), which has jurisdiction over the regions with the highest deforestation in Colombia, particularly in the department of Caquetá. FCMC and IDEAM supported the training of a consultant and equipped CorpoAmazonia with a workstation to conduct analysis and generate deforestation alerts for Caquetá for 2014. These alerts were subsequently disseminated to users in the CAR as well as in a local community in Caquetá. A community engagement consultant also conducted workshops with local officials and the community of Belen de los Andaquies to demonstrate the early alerts system and initiate a feedback process from the community on the deforestation alerts. FCMC also supported IDEAM in developing a satellite-based automated fire alerts system, and CI extended the Firecast system to provide fire alerts through the Firecast web portal. This activity provided critical support for the development of an alerts system as part of the national forest monitoring system, and created a dialog between the national agency IDEAM; a local CAR, CorpoAmazonia; and a community in Caquetá. The process of generating deforestation and fire alerts will continue to develop and be integrated into the Colombian MRV system, and this activity will provide guidance for the development of local institutions and community participation for forest monitoring in Colombia.
