| European
Tropical Forest Research Network |
REMOTE SENSING AND GIS FOR SUPPORTING SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENT CERTIFICATION IN THE TROPICS
By Cui Yijun, Yousif Ali Hussin and Ali Sharifi
Forest certification is a process for verifying whether a forest is sustainably managed or not. Certain criteria and indicators are used in this process. The Indonesian Institute for Eco-Labelling (LEI), based on the guidelines developed by International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO), Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), has compiled a comprehensive set of criteria and indicators for the Indonesian certification of sustainable forest management (SFM). Under an agreement made by FSC and LEI in 2000, all the certification bodies operating in Indonesia are to use this set of C&I only. How to effectively and objectively assess the forest management performance against these criteria and indicators has become an important issue.
Remote sensing as a
source of information
In order to carry out sustainable forest management certification efficiently
and monitor already certified forest management performance objectively, unambiguous
and timely information about the target forest areas is needed. It is not feasible
in terms of both money and time to obtain information pertaining to large and,
usually, remote forest areas using only field surveys. Remote sensing data and
techniques must therefore be considered. In fact it is the only way to obtain
timely information on large and remote tropical rain forest areas. Theoretically,
there is no doubt that remote sensing data can be a useful tool in supporting
the acquirement of this information. However, because of the newness of SFM
certification there are still many unknowns concerning the application of remote
sensing in order to support certification.
Scope of the study
The research objective was to investigate the extent to which remotely sensed
satellite images and GIS can be used to support the forest certification process
in Indonesia. Landsat-7 satellite images were used as well as object-oriented
image analysis for image classification. GIS was used for the integrated analysis
of classification results and other geographic data.
The selected study area was the Labanan forest, which is located in Berau regency in Indonesia (one of the four regencies in East Kalimantan province). Inhutani I, a state-owned forest concession company, has managed this area for more than 30 years and selective logging has been carried out since 1970.
The potential
The results revealed that there is great potential for using Landsat satellite
images and object-oriented image analysis to extract information to support
the forest certification process. Several indicators can be positively assessed
using remotely sensed data, image processing and GIS analysis.
Further information:
Cui Yijun, Dr Yousif Ali Hussin and Dr Ali Sharifi
The International Institute for Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation
(ITC)
Hengelostraat 99,
7500 AA Enschede
The Netherlands
E-mail: cui@itc.nl; hussin@itc.nl; sharifi@itc.nl