For deforestation-free value chains, public and private sector decision-makers need to monitor the land cover dynamics within the production landscapes that supply the world with agricultural commodities.

Experience proves that users require regular oversight of both the dynamics between forest and no forest areas, and between agricultural land cover and tree forest cover inside production landscapes. The monitoring of these dynamics is essential to achieve deforestation-free commodity supply chains.

“The existence of Land Use Change Monitoring Systems, originally designed to control deforestation from agricultural commodities expansion, is now also helping aqueducts prevent agrochemical runoff into water sources. The benefits are many”, said Jairo Serna, field expert in Costa Rica and former UNDP Senior Technical Advisor, during a virtual workshop for commodity practitioners in October 2020 which focused on the potential of LUCM solutions to prevent social and environmental externalities.*

Practitioners who are unfamiliar with Geographical Information Systems but involved in deforestation-free commodities must choose whether to rely on existing openly accessible global forest monitoring services, contracting private service providers, or, developing national monitoring systems themselves. This can be a difficult task because of the increased availability of Land Use Change Monitoring (LUCM) solutions.

“The increased availability of land use change monitoring solutions can be overwhelming for development practitioners, technical staff from financial institutions, or senior managers from commodity buyer companies”, said lead author Kifah Sasa, Chief Programme Officer at UNDP Costa Rica and former Senior Advisor to UNDP’s Green Commodities Programme. “By grading them in terms of practitioner-friendliness, we offer a way through the maze”.

The new Practice Guidance ‘Land Use Change Monitoring Solutions in Support of Deforestation-Free Commodities’ could be a turning point for non-specialized practitioners with this type of choice in their hands. It offers a reader-friendly and practical review of the characteristics of five global LUCM solutions and five national systems from around the world and provides the answers to the most common questions in this often difficult task.

The guide focuses on the suitability and usability of these LUCM solutions to monitor whether a production area gains or loses tree forest cover from year-to-year as a result of a specific agricultural activity.

“This guide is a perfect introduction of land use change monitoring systems for researchers and students who want to understand better the existing offer of technological solutions for controlling deforestation within agricultural landscapes.” says Tania Rodriguez Echavarría, PhD. Professor of Political Geography and Director of the master’s degree on Political Science at the University of Costa Rica.

The review can be downloaded here.

*If you are interested in learning more about LUCM solutions, watch the virtual workshop here (only in Spanish!).