In the Field
May 2013
Pantropical Scholars Newsletter
Woods Hole Research Center
Pantropical Visiting Scholars Program Zamba Malamu – The Forest is Good Greetings Scholars, I hope this letter finds you all happy and healthy. We have many exciting updates to share with you, including news of a new satellite launched, a couple of new PhD students, some fun and interesting aerial photography techniques, and several reports of progress for establishing country-scale reference emission levels (RELs).
have a lot of experience in rural development; we hope to incorporate their knowledge with new ideas that can help this region retain its forest while improving the livelihoods of people in the region.
At WHRC, we have an update of our own. A few months ago, I emailed all of you to announce our recent funding for the Equateur Project in the DRC, which is supported by the Congo Basin Forest Fund. Glenn and I have been waiting for a long time to begin this project, and we are so excited to see it finally coming to life.
Additionally, we have hired some new WHRC team members. Melaine Kermarc is our new project manager who is stationed in Mbandaka, DRC; he oversees day to day, on the ground operations. We are also in the process of hiring a financial officer to assist with in-country finance and administration. Based at WHRC, Amanda Poston joined the team as project administrator to serve as liaison between our new field office and WHRC. Finally, Raymond Achu Samndong, a Norwegian graduate student from Cameroon, is working with Glenn on the socioeconomic research part of the grant. He is in the DRC now, collecting important socioeconomic baseline data. Glenn and I will oversee the project for the next 3 years.
The purpose of the Equateur Project is to support sustainable development that allows conservation of forests and reduces rural poverty in the DRC province of Equateur – a tall order! We will be testing the implementation of the REDD+ financial mechanism with three specific objectives: (1) increase local capacity for REDD+ project development; (2) conduct REDD+ pilot projects with communities, so they may manage their own forests/carbon; and (3) inform the REDD+ process at higher levels (e.g., provincial, national). This project raises some difficult questions, ones with which many of you are very familiar. For instance, how can we at once ensure food security, reduce poverty, and conserve the forest? To answer these types of tough questions and accomplish all of our technical and rural development goals, we will need help. Along with establishing a greater in-country presence, we are working with four partners who
The establishment of this new office in the DRC is a huge milestone for WHRC, as it is our first field office in Africa. Written on the door in Lingala is the unofficial name of the project, which we adopted because it captures the spirit of our work and of the community: “Zamba Malamu,” which translates to “The Forest is Good.” Around here, we tend to agree!
In th is Is su e:
Keep up all of your hard work – what we are doing really matters. Cheers,
Nadine nam
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Reports from Indone