The GIS staff from the AREAS and Tiger programmes across Asia came together in southern India in September to work toward a uniform standard for mapping and monitoring the forest cover and forest loss in their landscapes. GIS staff are generally responsible for developing key information including the identification and mapping of boundaries of administrative units, conflict areas and threats, species distribution and movement, and the mapping and monitoring of habitat types, land cover/use and changes (including forest conversion and degradation).

The nearly 30 staff in attendance agreed to harmonise the existing classification systems for monitoring their rhino, elephant and tiger landscapes, at the same time feeding into a coherent Asia-wide map and strategy as well. Recent international developments on the FAO-supported standardized classification system LCCS (Land Cover Classification System) serve as a useful example. They agreed to work toward a coordinated approach by later this year to enable changes to be better comparable across landscapes and systematic regional analysis done on habitat loss. The workshop, which AREAS coordinator Dr. Christy Williams designed to be completely paperless, was facilitated by SarVision, a Dutch organization set up by Wageningen University. Its mission is to advance the operational application of new systematic land cover/use mapping and monitoring approaches based on time series in support of nature conservation and sustainable development tropical forest regions.

The workshop was hosted by AREAS and WWF-India and held in the Nilgiris/Eastern Ghats AREAS landscape, home to the world?s largest population of Asian elephants. Participants came from AREAS and tiger projects in Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Nepal, Bhutan and Cambodia.