Observatory of Central African Forests: National and Regional Estimate of Forest Cover and Forest Cover Change for 1990, 2000 and 2005 / La Cartographie Forestière et le Changement d'Occupation et Utilisation du Sol: Description de la Méthodologie

Abstract

Tropical forests, although covering less than 10% of the total land surface of the Earth, represent the largest terrestrial reservoir of biological diversity1, changes in these biome have major impacts on climate change and biodiversity loss. The Congo Basin hosts the second-largest contiguous block of tropical forest after the Amazon2. To assess these impacts, dynamic forest cover change is more than ever a challenge. Today, optical earth observations methods are fully operational for forest type definitions, mapping and forest cover changes over local scale. National and international decision makers need reliable, objective, verifiable according to international standards and up-to-date information to define and monitor forest policies and to report to international conventions. Only satellite images can provide enough information on processes such as deforestation at the scale of Congo Basin. In this context the Observatory of Forests of Central Africa (OFAC) and the Forest Resources Assessment (FRA-2010) led by FAO, invited each country to work together to estimate forest cover changes for years 1990-2000-2005 (and later 2010).