Forest COMPASS - Brazil, Guyana

This activity addresses climate change mitigation through reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD). The goal of Forest COMPASS is to build local capacity for communities to independently run a community-based monitoring system that strengthens decision-making on local resource management and facilitates community engagement and participation.

Fast facts:

This activity provides data on forest stock changes and socio-environmental safeguards as well as enables the full and effective participation of local communities and indigenous peoples;
Forest communities and indigenous peoples manage 23% of tropical forests and therefore are crucial to supporting this activity.

The problem

The land use sector is responsible for approximately 14% of anthropogenic carbon emissions.

The solution

In the Forest COMPASS project, smartphones combined with readily available software and analysis packages are transforming community monitoring of externally driven interventions to combat climate change. The software enables remote communities to connect their datasets on smartphones and combine that data to make management decisions that reduce climate change. For example, as an outcome of on-the-ground activities in Guyana, the communities involved are reviewing farming practices and will focus on those that do not cause deforestation.

Helping the planet

With on the ground activities Forest COMPASS helps monitor natural resources through climate adaptive management.

Helping people

Indigenous peoples are central to the Forest COMPASS project. Within this activity’s on the ground activities in Guyana and Acre, indigenous peoples have been instrumental in designing a bottom up monitoring framework to measure their well-being, forest change and natural resources. Through this, the project can also help improve local understanding and inform better decision making on territorial resource management and development.

Scaling Up

The Forest COMPASS network draws from current activities in Guyana and Acre to help consolidate resources and tools from other projects as well. Through working sessions, online learning and reports they are able to disseminate lessons learned and inspire new projects.