Kick-off for the Côte d’Ivoire forest and wildlife inventory

The kick-off meeting was held on Tuesday 5th March 2019 in the presence of the French Minister of Water and Forests and the international consortium ONFI – IGNFI – IGN, chosen as the supporting body for the Côte d’Ivoire’s second forest inventory. The last inventory was carried out in 1978.
The project, which is scheduled for a duration of two years, sets out to:

• Update the knowledge on the country´s forest and wildlife resources in order to provide the Ivorian government with the tools it needs to manage its resources in the best possible way;
• Carry out capacity building for concerned administrative and technical workers. The purpose of these important training sessions is to make sure that national teams have full control of inventory methodologies in the field and that they master digital tools used for data collection purposes.

There are several key components to the IFFN project:

• Performance of field inventory by Ivorian operators: Forestry Development Society (SODEFOR) for the forest inventory, the Ivorian Office of Parks and Reserves (OIPR) for the wildlife inventory and the National Agency for Support to Rural Development for the socio-economic section
• Data processing and analysis
• Presentation of results, which will take place on the occasion of a workshop in Abidjan at the end of the project
• Accumulation of training qualifications and public awareness-raising of the challenges of deforestation.

To carry out this ambitious project, The French Ministry of Water and Forests has received funding from The French Development Agency (AFD) programme entitled “Debt Reduction Development Contract” (C2D).

Three referring entities are working to the benefit of Côte d´Ivoire´s natural resources, providing technical assistance to IFFN (National Forest and Wildlife Inventory):

• ONFI, heading the consortium ONFI – IGN-FI – IGN, through its subsidiary ONF Côte d´Ivoire ONF Côte d’Ivoire;
• IGN FI, IGN-FI, leading player in the field of geomatics, supplies expert counselling in the areas of cartography / national infrastructure of geographical data, databases, geographic information systems. Entirely dedicated to export projects, IGN FI has expert knowledge in a number of sectors: land administration, agriculture, forestry, environment…
• The national institute of geographic and forest information (IGN), public administrative body overseen by the ministers of respectively sustainable development and forests. IGN is the State´s reference operator in terms of geographic and forestry information, labelled as neutral and interoperable.

Contact

Pascal Cuny (pascal.cuny@onfinternational.com, 87 24 48 91), ONFI, main technical advisor to the IFFN project.

© Photo: F. Plancheron (ONFI) / Text: A. Areste-Lamendour (IGNFI)