Background

Tropical deforestation is a common phenomenon in the tropics, gaining much attention from all sectors of societies during recent past. This is primarily because tropical forests play a vital role in providing goods and services to the humanity, maintaining balances in the planet’s ecosystem, and providing genetic storehouse of planet’s ecosystem. Information on the present status of these vast resources and their rate of change, however, is not available readily. Until recently, collecting accurate data on tropical forests across the globe was a difficult task. The emerging technologies of satellite remote sensing and geographical information systems provide new ways for us to observe and understand the Earth's resources.

The TREES (TRopical Ecosystem Environment Observations by Satellites) Project was established in 1991 by European Commission's Joint Research Centre to collect accurate and up-to-date data of the Earth's tropical forest resources. The results of the project will contribute to a better understanding of the world's tropical forest in the global environment - pinpointing where and why forests are disappearing. The present initiative is a subset of TREES II project jointly implemented by UNEP Environment Assessment Programme for Asia and the Pacific and Joint Research Center, Ispra, Italy.

Goals and Objectives

The broad goal of the project is to monitor the deforestation processes in selected sample sites in Myanmar. The specific objectives include:

• to assess forest cover changes from satellite images for four selected locations in Myanmar within the TM frames: 134/43, 134/45, 134/46 and 133/43 Quadrant 3,
• to prepare a GIS and statistical database, and
• to analyse the change processes within the selected areas.

Major activities of the project include acquisition of satellite imageries, ground truthing and data analysis. The results obtained will be presented in a workshop organized by TREES project.

Deliverables

The following outputs will be produced during the project.

• Interpretation of historical and recent satellite images as digital files (Arc-Info compatible)
• Digital file containing the change polygons
• File containing the change matrix (Excel compatible)
• Digital copies of the remote sensing data acquired in the framework of this contract.
• Digital copy of other data-layers and the database established in the framework of this contract
• Final report

The Regional Coordinator of UNEP Environment Assessment Programme for Asia and the Pacific will coordinate the project. National Commission for Environmental Affairs and Forest Department of Myanmar will also involved in the data analysis and field survey. Technical support on Co-Pilot software will be provided by Joint Research Center.

Time Frame

The project will be implemented during the period of March to August 1999.

Geographic Scope

The project area covers an area of approximately 111,200 sq. Kms in four sample sites in Myanmar.

 For Further Information:

Mr. Surendra Shrestha Regional Coordinator	Tin Aung Moe
UNEP Regional Resource Centre for Asia and the Pacific Asian Institute of Technology P.O. Box 4, Klongluang, Pathumthani 12120, Thailand Tel: (66-2) 524-6235, Fax: (66-2) 516-2125 Email: info@rrcap.unep.org , Home Page: www.rrcap.unep.org