African NCA Community of Practice Webinar: Leveraging Earth Observations for Ecosystem Accounting: A NASA-CI Effort to Pilot Ecosystem Mapping in Liberia

The webinar is part of a series under the Africa Natural Capital Accounting Community of Practice organized in cooperation between UNSD and the World Bank Global Program on Sustainability, the Gaborone Declaration for Sustainability in Africa, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the United Nations Environment Programme, the Green Growth Knowledge Platform, the Conservation International and the Capitals Coalition.

Date and time: Thursday, 25 March 2021 at 13:00 GMT / 14:00 CET / 16:00 EAT / 8:00 am EST

Description

The System of Environmental-Economic Accounts (SEEA) represents a global effort towards the goal of mainstreaming nature into decision-making. The recently adopted SEEA Ecosystem Accounting (EA) is the international statistical standard to measure ecosystems, their status and contribution to the economy. These accounts begin with an “Ecosystem Extent Account”, which maps ecosystems distribution and tracks changes over time.

This webinar will demonstrate a low-cost, replicable approach for the identification and mapping of ecosystem extent developed through a partnership between US space agency NASA, Conservation International (CI) and the government of Liberia. The webinar will share results from Liberia, and how these results are supporting planning and decision-making in the country. Last, the webinar will encourage a discussion on how the piloted approach in Liberia can support other countries efforts to develop SEEA-compliant ecosystem extent accounts at the national scale.  

Webinar Facilitator: Dr. Rosimeiry Portela, Conservation International (CI)

Program Outline:

1. Presentation: Natural Capital Accounting: Supporting planning and decision making in Liberia

Speaker: Mr. Z. Elijah Whapoe, Environmental Protection Agency of Liberia (EPA)

2. Presentation: Ecosystem Accounting and the role of Earth Observation

Speaker: Mr. Daniel Juhn, Conservation International (CI)

3. Brief video synopsis of the Liberia Ecosystem Extent Map  

4. Presentation: The use of earth observations to generate ecosystem extent maps: Results from Liberia
Speaker: Dr. Celio H. Resende De Sousa, NASA

5. Panel discussion

Panelists:

•    Mr. Z. Elijah Whapoe – EPA
•    Dr. Miroslav Honzak – CI
•    Dr. Temilola Fatoyinbo – NASA

6. Open Q&A

Download presenations

Webinar Documents:

•    Natural Capital Mapping and Accounting in Liberia
•    Implementation Plan for the Earth Observation for Ecosystem Accounting (EO4EA) Initiative

Webinar slides and recording will be made available to all participants and NCA CoP members after the event.

Webinar recording