The participants of the side event discussed about satellite technology to detect changes of forest and mitigate deforestation which is expected to contribute to forest resource management and REDD+. In particular, the event focused on “JICA-JAXA Forest Early Warning System in the Tropics (JJ-FAST)” operated by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), discussed how to improve and efficiency implement forest monitoring activities by satellite technology. While JJ-FAST provides forest change information every 1.5 month covering 77 countries in tropics, the participants from Cambodia, Mozambique, and Peru joined the even among the countries. In addition, JAXA invited Dr. Thelma Krug, vice chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for a keynote speech, she talked about the importance of forest conservation in the context of an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 degrees.

Agenda

Session 1 "Satellite Observation for Effective Forest Monitoring": JAXA introduced “JJ-FAST” which provides forest degradation information by satellite free of charge, with technical information on satellite observation as well as actual example of finding illegal loggers in forest in Brazil. In addition, the European Space Agency (ESA) introduced the framework and activities of forest monitoring with various satellites by the Group on Earth Observation (GEO).
Session 2 "Country Use Cases": Participants from Cambodia, Mozambique, and Peru joined the event as panelists and introduced the status of forest monitoring and activities to incorporate satellite technology into forest monitoring in each country.

The side event showed that the free online system JJ-FAST is one of useful tools to monitor large forest effectively. Developing countries will be able to use satellite technology and JJ-FAST for forest monitoring by combining capacity building activities by JICA.