Local communities and Indigenous Peoples are crucial to conserving and managing forest resources, as their traditional knowledge and long-standing experience with forest ecosystems are invaluable for effective forest conservation and sustainable management. However, reports indicate that their knowledge is frequently excluded from national forest monitoring systems, weakening these efforts. This project aims to strengthen the capacities of Bolivia, Colombia, Guyana and Peru to integrate both scientific and traditional knowledge in the implementation of the United Nations strategic plan for forests UNSPF (2015-2030) by engaging Indigenous Peoples and local communities user-friendly monitoring and assessment activities, identifying existing data gaps and challenges from their perspectives; and facilitating the provision of data on best practices especially the application of user friendly digital technology, experiences, and information for monitoring, assessment, and reporting on the implementation of sustainable forest management and the UNSPF.  The project will be implemented in collaboration with FAO, UNFF Major groups, IUFRO and ECLAC. The project will produce guidelines for integrating community-based monitoring with national forest monitoring system and will build the capacity of the key stakeholders. Crucially, the project will pilot these tools in selected communities to generate new integrated datasets related to forest monitoring in those four countries. The project will explore to adopt digital technology, such as mobile app system for ecosystem monitoring by the Indigenous People and communities. The project will target free, active and meaningful participation of all stakeholders, particularly Indigenous People (IPs), women, persons with disabilities, local communities (LCs) and the youth to ensure that no one is left behind. 

This project aims to strengthen capacity of four developing countries to develop and implement integrated forest landscape restoration plans to halt deforestation, tackle its drivers and its intensifying factors, and make progress towards the forest-related SDGs. It also aims to build capacity for developing and implementing policy measures for enhancing mobilization of public and private sector investments into forest landscape restoration. The expected outputs include background situation analysis studies on the status of forests, levels and drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, forest management and forest landscape restoration and other measures to combat deforestation; national experts with capacity to develop and implement integrated forest landscape restoration plans; national policy frameworks and  measures for attracting and harnessing public and private sector investments in forest landscape restoration; and development and dissemination of tool kits and training materials to other additional countries to promote upscaling of these activities beyond the project countries.

This project supports and assists selected countries in developing a comprehensive and efficient system for monitoring progress towards SFM. This is be achieved through a step- by-step approach, which includes conducting inventories of existing forest-related data, mapping data gaps, addressing these gaps and selecting appropriate indicators. Particular attention is be paid to socio-economic aspects (e.g. livelihoods, food security, poverty reduction) of forests and financial flows for SFM. The socio-economic benefits of forests are particularly important to societies in the selected developing countries, yet these are the areas where methodology is missing and data is either very weak or not existing. The project takes into account the outcomes of the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Indicators (IAEG), particularly indicators on SDG15 and target 15.2, which specifically address SFM. It is expected that the monitoring framework developed within this project will serve domestic needs as well as help to report on forest related international commitments including the SDGs, the UN Forest Instrument and its Global Objectives on Forests. To a large extent the analytical work will be done by national consultants and results of their work will be presented and discussed at series of national workshops. These workshops will gather not only forest authorities but also focal points of the Rio Conventions (CBD, UNCCC, UNCCD), FAO/FRA and stakeholders from other sectors (employment, demographics, energy), which gather data relevant to and whose decisions have effect on forests and forestry. The lessons learned and experiences gained within this project will be shared at a global workshop, which could agree on a common approach to reporting among broader group of countries and possibly serve as starting point for an updated reporting mechanism to UNFF.