At the end of May 2023, the Center for Rural Development in Central Vietnam (CRD), University of Agriculture and Forestry, Hue University held a seminar on “Instructions on checking Webgis data” for representatives of forest management communities/group of households in Thuong Lo commune, Nam Dong district, Thua Thien Hue province. 35 representatives of 4 communities and 12 household groups attended the activity.
Sharing session on Webgis data checking
Forest management communities/group of households in Thuong Lo commune has begun to apply forest patrol software from 2020. However, the data from forest patrols is mainly stored on an internal server by the Forest Protection and Development Fund and has not been effectively utilized for reporting violations for timely handling. Hence, the project “Strengthening CSOs and CBOs to Accelerate Conservation Efforts in the Central Annamites in Thua Thien Hue province” organized a training session to check forest patrol data for representatives of communities/groups of forest management so that they could be able to check forest patrol routes, export data on patrol routes and violations, and send this information to commune forestry officers and forest rangers.
At the sharing session, At the seminar, the participants had the opportunity to share the difficulties they encountered when detecting cases of violations and how they reported the cases to the authorities for handling. Mr. Pham Van Duong, head of the Cha Mang community committee, said: “When we patrol the forest and detect violations, we only call commune forestry officers and local rangers for basic information, for example, cutting down 3 trees at Cha Moong stream without information about the exact location, coordinates, lot, or plot for the officer in charge to check.” Faced with this situation, CRD staff shared detailed steps for community members/household groups to manage forestscheck, export data and sendViolations information to forestry officers through forest patrol software.
How members practice checking and exporting Webgis data
After the session, 100% of the participants revealed themselves capable of checking and exporting data; while 80% of them committed to apply what they had learnt when patrolling the forest in the future.
This activity is within the framework of the project “Strengthening CSOs and CBOs to Accelerate Conservation Efforts in the Central Annamites in Thua Thien Hue province” funded by the Swedish International Cooperation and Development Organization (Sida) via the WorldWide Fund for Nature (WWF – Vietnam).
Tran Huu Tam.
The participants to the seminar
