The Kenya Forest Service and the Kenya Space Agency will have a strategic partnership to use space technology to monitor forests.
Chief conservator of forests Julius Kamau made the revelation on Wednesday during the launch of the Kenya Space Agency Strategic Plan 2020-25. Defence CS Monica Juma presided at the launch.
Kenya's forest cover is 7.2 per cent. Under the strategy, Kenya needs to plant 1.8 billion seedlings between now and 2022 to achieve 10 per cent tree cover. This will need at least Sh48 billion.
“KSA has a strategic partnership with Kenya Forest Service towards utilisation of space and space technologies to develop forestry solutions in areas such as forest fires monitoring and mapping, land cover land use imagery, and forest types (natural, plantation, bamboo, and mangroves) monitoring,” Kamau said.
He said the two agencies are implementing a research project on the development of earth observation applications using Google Earth to develop products on natural resource management.
“The service has already nominated two GIS/Remote Sensing technical officers in a joint team with KSA to co-develop products on natural resource management using GEE platforms,” Kamau said.
He said the programme has a component of training for the team on GEE by Earth Observation Data Science. The project is funded by the Group on Earth Observation and Google.
Edited by Henry Makori
