Brazzaville, the Republic of Congo, 10-11 February 2025
As part of the project “Securing Crucial Biodiversity, Carbon and Water Stores in the Congo Basin Peatlands by Enabling Evidence-Based Decision‑Making and Good Governance,” a two-day workshop was organized in Brazzaville on February 10-11 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), together with the Ministry of the Environment, Sustainable Development and the Congo Basin. Twenty-five participants from national institutions and universities, alongside key partners and stakeholders were trained on peatland monitoring tools.
The workshop was opened by the Minister of the Environment, Sustainable Development and the Congo Basin of the Republic of the Congo, Ms Arlette Soudan-Nonault and M. Manuel Müller, the Charge d’Affaires, a.i., at the German Embassy in the Republic of Congo. Minister Soudan-Nonault reaffirmed the Government’s commitment to preserving peatlands in the Republic of Congo, while M. Müller underscored the German Government’s continued financial support for their conservation, restoration, and sustainable management. Throughout the two-day workshop, participants gained hands-on experience with remote sensing technologies, including the FAO-developed SEPAL (System for Earth Observation Data Access, Processing, and Analysis for Land Monitoring), a cloud-based solution for accessing satellite data and applying remote sensing processing chains. Participants also explored how to import and analyze otherr satellite based monitoring systems such as Radar for Detecting Deforestation (RADD), Global and Analysis and Discover (GLAD) deforestation alerts, and MODIS burned area product using SEPAL.
Related media coverage can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17ntYDnXb-w.
The workshop was carried out as part of the project “Securing Crucial Biodiversity, Carbon and Water Stores in the Congo Basin Peatlands by Enabling Evidence-Based Decision-‑Making and Good Governance”. The aim is to support the governments of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo in the conservation and sustainable management of the peatlands, while contributing to a biodiversity-friendly development pathway. The project is implemented by UNEP and FAO, together with other partners, and funded by the German Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMUV) through the International Climate Initiative (IKI).
For more details, please contact:
Matthew Warren (FAO): [email protected]
Simon Tanios (UNEP): [email protected]