Through the intensive two-day hands-on training that started on Nov 26, 2024, Ecological Monitoring and Research wardens from the Republic of Rwanda, the Republic of Congo, and the Republic of Uganda have learned how to use the Greater Virunga Landscape Forest web viewer to monitor and manage the forests of the Greater Virunga Landscape. This knowledge will allow users to use and interpret the Virunga web viewer.

It should be recalled that the Greater Virunga Landscape (GVL) is the most diverse and fragile ecoregion of Africa, with endangered wildlife and fauna, such as the Mountain gorillas and elephants, as well as birds and plants. However, the landscape is threatened by species depletion and habitat loss through deforestation, poaching, illegal trade in fauna and flora, overfishing, wildfires, etc.

Since the area is under threat, a reliable monitoring system is paramount. Forest Viewer observation allows uninterrupted observation at short intervals, independent of sunlight and cloud cover. Because of automation, results can be delivered almost instantaneously, making it ideal for reliable monitoring.

It is against this background that the Greater Virunga Transboundary Collaboration (GVTC) has partnered with SarVision from the Netherlands to develop capacity of Protected Area Authorities and their partners in the GVTC Partner States (Rwanda, DRC and Uganda) to enhance forest disturbance and climate change monitoring as well as the law enforcement, especially in the hard-to-reach areas under a Netherlands Government supported four years Programme known as Conserving Greater Virunga (CGV) Programme.

This partnership aimed at capacity building and technology transfer for advanced, automated, and accurate near real-time Forest Viewer monitoring of forest disturbances, land use, and livelihood changes as critical factors in climate change and law enforcement.

This fully automated near real-time system based on Sentinel-1 C-band Forest Viewer was developed to monitor changes in forest cover. It is accurate and can even detect subtle disturbances, such as selective logging, which are hard or impossible to detect on optical satellite data.

This system has shown its effectiveness in detecting changes, allowing Managers to make decisions, if necessary, to send rangers to the ground to see exactly what is happening, like timber cutting, elephants pushing trees, landslides in the PAs, bush fires, volcanic eruptions…, etc.

Forest Viewer technology can generate personalised alerts, which will allow park rangers to concentrate on relevant changes within their own forest area of concern.

This technology can be linked to mobile technology and allow participatory monitoring where users not only download data but also have the opportunity to upload local information, such as photographs of disturbances.

Prof. Dirk Hoekman Herman from SarVision company in the Kingdom of the Netherlands facilitated this two-day hands-on training, assisted by Mr. Rob Luiken, who attended virtually.

Note that the current coverage area of this system which is the Greater Virunga Landscape, requires 1½ scene. Given the noted importance of this system in forest disturbance monitoring, according to the participants from DRC and Uganda whose countries are not entirely covered by the current agreement, They wished this system could be extended to their other parks. To cover all forests in the three countries is possible, but this would require additional resources as  ±80 scenes will be needed. This implies the mobilisation of resources to achieve it.

In his welcome remarks, Mr. Prosper Uwingeli, the Chief Park Warden of Volcanoes National Park of Rwanda, recognised the relevance of transboundary collaboration given the interconnectedness of the network of the protected areas forming the Greater Virunga Landscape. He added that this system is essential, as it facilitates the park managers' day-to-day natural resource management.

Mr Juvenal Mukeshimana, the GVTC Program Assistant, on behalf of the GVTC Management, appreciated the financial support from the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands for the financial, technical and diplomatic support which contributed to the improvement of the  Greater Virunga Landscape conservation.

He especially called upon the participants' dedication to using the knowledge they will acquire during these two days of the Forest View hands-on training and requested that they share that knowledge with others: "Don't keep it to yourself, as it can help curb the course of deforestation in this region.": he urged.

He added that GVTC will continue to play its role of bringing together different players in accordance with its mandate in order to ensure the sustainable conservation of the Greater Virunga Landscape.