Tools and methods for monitoring deforestation and forest degradation by remote sensing : workshops held in September and November 2016 in Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Laos, Vientiane, Vietnam, Hanoi

The ReCaREDD (Regional Capacities for REDD+) project is hosted by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC), funded by the European Commission's Directorate-General for International Development and Cooperation (DG DEVCO). The main goal of the project is to enhance the capacities of institutions in tropical partner countries to assess and report on deforestation and forest degradation in the context of REDD+, in a reliable and cost-efficient manner. Further objectives are to develop, share and adapt appropriate monitoring methods and software tools, and to provide direct assessments of the status and evolution of tropical forest cover in support to forest policies and national or international negotiations on emission reductions. In continental Southeast Asia the ReCaREDD project has established direct collaboration with partners in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam ('focus countries'), where methodologies for forest monitoring and new Sentinel-2 satellite imagery are being tested in the context of collaboration of JRC and national partner institutions. Test sites have been selected and field-work will be performed. However, also other countries of the region ('associate countries') can similarly benefit from the project: All data, methodologies, and tools produced in the context of ReCaREDD will be shared. There will be regional workshops and case-by-case collaboration can be envisaged for selected topics, as done for instance for the provision of pre-processed Sentinel-2 data of the years 2015/2016 to national forest institutions in Myanmar and Nepal. Furthermore, the present phase of the ReCaREDD initiative on 'Prototyping a Regional Forest Observatory in continental Southeast Asia' covers all countries in continental Southeast Asia. In the context of the ReCaREDD project, the JRC is implementing a set of regional or national workshops and training sessions to inform and train partner institutions in techniques for monitoring and assessing forest degradation using most recent satellite remote sensing data, combined with field surveys.