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<BODY style="MARGIN: 4px 4px 1px; FONT: 10pt Segoe UI">FYI<BR><BR>>>> "Parcher, Jean" <jean_parcher@ios.doi.gov> 9/9/2013 5:22 PM >>><BR>
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<P>Dear Participants of the International Symposium on Land Cover Mapping for the African Continent,</P>
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<P>On behalf of the Organizing Committee, we wish to thank you all for participating in the Symposium. Your participation and valuable input during the roundtable and discussion exchanges are greatly appreciated. </P>
<P>On behalf of Tsinghua University, we have posted the presentations, agenda, and participation list on the following website: <A href="http://data.ess.tsinghua.edu.cn/ISLandCoverAfrica.html" target=_blank><SPAN style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: Arial,sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 10pt">http://data.ess.tsinghua.edu.cn/ISLandCoverAfrica.html</SPAN></A></P>
<P>Also attached to this email you will find the participation list and Final Statement. We are still in the process of completing the Final Report of the Symposium. We will send out the report when it is complete. </P>
<P>In response to the request to set up an Africa GEOSS Working Group on Land Cover Mapping, the Organizing Committee is working on an invitational letter for the first meeting to be held in Addis Ababa during the Africa GIS conference. We will send out more information soon.</P>
<P>Again, thank you all for your wonderful participation and your synergy to carry forward on the recommendations in the Final Statement.</P></DIV>-- <BR>Jean Parcher
<DIV>Program Manager</DIV>
<DIV>DOI International Technical Assistance Program</DIV>
<DIV>1849 C Street, NW, MS 3530 Rm # 3554</DIV>
<DIV>Washington DC 20240</DIV>
<DIV>202 513-0840</DIV>
<DIV>512 470-8819 (cell)</DIV>
<DIV style="TEXT-ALIGN: left"><A href="mailto:jean_parcher@ios.doi.gov" target=_blank>jean_parcher@ios.doi.gov</A></DIV>
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<DIV style="TEXT-ALIGN: left"><STRONG>Final Statement</STRONG><BR>International Symposium on Land Cover Mapping for the African Continent June 27, 2013<BR>The International Symposium on Land Cover Mapping for the African Continent, hosted by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD), with support from the United States Department of the Interior, Tsinghua University and the joint USAID/NASA SERVIR program took place in Nairobi, Kenya on June 25-27, 2013.<BR>The Symposium brought together a diverse group of participants from four continents (Africa, America, Europe, and Asia). Participants were from governments, academia, and NGOS representatives from nineteen African countries, including regional entities.<BR>The major objectives of this three-day event were to share ongoing technical collaboration, data availability, capacity building successes, and to increase communication between and among the various stakeholders.<BR>Land-cover data are some of the most important inputs for weather forecasting, human and ecosystem health, climate change, agricultural sustainability, management of water, forest and other natural resources, land use planning, reducing land degradation, conservation of biodiversity, and renewable energy assessment. Information on land-cover change trends provides significant value to both the scientific community and the general public. Therefore, land-cover information plays a critical role in supporting policy and decision-making at local, regional, continental and global levels.<BR>Mapping Africa’s land cover has been facilitated by the availability of free and open data from the US Landsat program and data processing/analysis capabilities in African regional centres (e.g. RCMRD) and partner countries (e.g. China, US, EU). These data and processing capabilities have led to the creation of a new continent-wide map for the year 2010, continent-wide samples documenting land cover change between the 1990-2000-2010 epochs, regional maps for 2000 and 2010, regional validation datasets, and selected national and project scale mapping for specific tasks such as agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU) carbon accounting.<BR>However, in several countries data gaps, inadequate institutional frameworks, missing networks of experts and technological barriers mean that the specific needs of policy makers cannot always be met.<BR>Therefore key recommendations from the symposium participants to advance Land Cover mapping for the African Continent are to:<BR>1. Contribute to the development of a land use/land cover data product for the entire African continent at a 30-meter resolution for the African element of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (AfriGEOSS);<BR>2. Advocate for Earth Observation data providers to adopt a policy of free-and-open access to their data;<BR>3. Raise awareness of the availability of land use/land cover data, tools, applications, and land cover change dynamics among decision makers at multiple levels;<BR>4. Build mutually beneficial partnerships with national and regional institutions to assess their land cover needs, such as products and tools; while increasing their involvement in the data validation for the global land cover data product;<BR>5. Build capacity within and among national and regional institutions to integrate land cover data into decision making processes;<BR>6. Promote sound governance policies and activities that maximize the value and usefulness of land cover data at multiple scales to decision makers (e.g. data openness, data sharing, institutional transparency, common data standards);<BR>7. Establish an Africa-focused Community of Practice for Land Use and Land Cover to facilitate networking between scientists and technicians; and<BR>8. Establish an Africa-focused Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Global Land Cover Working Group to coordinate the above recommendations.</DIV><BR>
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