The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), as part of the implementation of the COMBO project, held a workshop in partnership with the Biodiversity Conservation Foundation (BIOFUND) and the Center for Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (CEAGRE), with the theme: “ Validation of a Miombo Forests Conservation - rapid assessment tool” on 19th August 2019 at the Radisson Blu Hotel, in Maputo City.
The objective of the meeting was to determine the best way to measure miombo status in Mozambique in a pragmatic way by defining:
i) What is the minimum set of attributes (eg. biomass, regeneration, species composition, etc.) to measure the miombo condition;
ii) How these should be combined into a measure or condition indicator for future integration into a metric for offsetting application.
This meeting was part of the work being done to define metrics to determine biodiversity losses, as well as the gains from counterbalancing actions, so that they can be quantified and their equivalence can be compared.
The event was attended by 23 participants (11 female and 12 male), representatives of various Government institutions (6), private companies (3), research institute and academy (6), consulting companies ( 3) and NGOs (5).
For the next step, the team wants to find the best way to measure the miombo condition in Mozambique in a pragmatic way and to develop a guide for data collection and analysis.
