Transforming challenges to opportunities: sharing experiences on forest management under COVID-19 pandemic impacts in the Asia-Pacific Region
The COVID-19 pandemic has been giving a significant impact on each sector and every level of development worldwide. APFNet launched an online meeting titled "COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts in Forestry in the Asia-Pacific Region" on 17th November 2021. At the meeting, nearly 50 APFNet project partners from over 15 economies in the Asia Pacific region attended, including 10 speakers from Cambodia, Lao PDR, China, Myanmar, Indonesia and Canada who shared their experiences on implementing projects during the ongoing pandemic situation.
Ms Anna Finke, Director of APFNet Project Management Division opened the meeting and welcomed all participants. Ms Shiyi Zhang, as moderator, introduced the main objectives of this meeting: providing an opportunity for project partners to share their experiences and views on APFNet project implementation and management under the COVID-19 crisis and improving communication and networking among the project partners. The meeting covered four topics including forestry education, training and career; forest construction and technology development; community forestry and forest restoration; and project management under the pandemic.
Topic 1: Forestry education, training and career
Capacity building is one of the important components of most APFNet projects. During this pandemic period, forestry education, training and career projects met tremendous difficulties, but the partners positively sought alternative solutions to conquer the difficulties. For example, due to the lockdown and international travel restrictions, Ms Pan Yao, Head of International Training and Communication Division of the APFNet Kunming Training Center said that they met tremendous difficulties in conducting workshops and organizing in-person field training. Therefore, they transformed the challenges into opportunities by upgrading their training products, re-examining the design of the thematic training programme and producing two publications in alignment with COP15, which is beneficial for further promoting the training in the future. APFNet Kunming Training Center has organized 23 workshops since 2009 and benefitted 355 forestry officials from 21 economies in the region.
In another instance, the pandemic situation has enhanced what they were started working on. “Asia-Pacific Forestry Education Coordination Mechanism (AP-FECM)" was initiated in 2014 and funded by APFNet and has been expanding the cooperation between universities and developing forestry education platforms within the region. The University of British Columbia (UBC) has been developing online courses on sustainable forest management in a project funded by APFNet, which opened a window to students who want to have forestry education from where they live within the Asia-Pacific region. Soon after the pandemic started,through this mechanism, online meetings with all the stakeholders in the different regions were organized to exchange their respective situations and to find better solutions to keep forestry education moving forward. Finally, there were six key action areas identified, including; providing teaching support to member universities and institutes with the project outputs of SFM online training courses, a virtual summer program to students, online dialogue with educational leaders, virtual lecture series on online teaching and learning, young scientists working association for virtual know sharing, and project promotion under COVID-19. While keeping these works on track, in 2020, more than 3000 students from 135 universities joined the innovative online courses, said Dr Wang Guangyu, Director of the AP-FECM.
Topic 2: Forest construction and technology development
In recent years, in developing multi-functional forestry, strengthening protection of germplasm resources, as well as establishing a regional platform for forestry information sharing and policy dialogue to promote sustainable forest management, APFNet supported projects involving the construction of facilities, such as several Forest Experience and Training Bases, a High-Value Tree Species Breeding Center, different greenhouses and arboretums, as well as some high-tech forest fire monitoring systems.
Three project partners from China, Cambodia and Myanmar presented respectively the issues they met during construction under the pandemic, such as international and domestic travel restrictions, increase in material and labour costs, delay in construction applying and approval process, etc.
Due to the difficulty of a frequent field visit by APFNet and executing agencies, Mr Li Zhaochen, Project Manager of APFNet Pu’er projects, explained that the project alternatively hired professional third-party construction supervisors to monitor the construction process and guarantee the quality of all steps, while Mr Sreng Syneath, Chief of Forest Development and Botanical Research Center of Institute of Forest and Wildlife Research and Development in Cambodia, mentioned that, they instructed local field staffs to complete the fieldwork, which proved to be a better way to guarantee the project progress. Also, as Mr Li Zhi, APFNet project manager experienced that reacting to these challenges, most meetings were moved to online platforms.
While based on the experience of Dr Ei Ei Hlaing, Assistant Director from Forest Research Institute of Forest Department, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation of Myanmar, they conduct the technical training on-site instead of indoors as planned previously.
The high-technology, such as forest fire monitoring and early warning system also played an irreplaceable role under the pandemic, which replaced the traditional fire monitoring with manpower. The system uses front-end monitoring equipment installed in the forest area and back-end command and control platforms in the control centre to monitor fire outbreaks in real-time. In 2020, APFNet further built four forest fire monitoring towers and two control centres in Wanzhangshan Forest Farm, which can monitor 50-60% of the total forest area in the Forest Farm. Since the system monitors forest fire automatically in real-time, which will not be affected by any restrictions under the pandemic.
Topic 3: Community forestry and forest restoration
Forest communities are highly important in implementing forest management, but as Ms Xin Shuyu, APFNet project manager observed from all related projects, communities are more vulnerable to the pandemic. In Cambodia, as Mr Sreng Syneath said, the most commonly reported impacts for the communities are higher food prices, lack of income sources, job losses, and reduced market demand for forest products. Meanwhile, in Lao PDR, Ms Tongngern Phongsavat stated that the livelihood of the community suffered from an income decrease and thus the risk of engaging in illegal activities to generate income increased. In Indonesia, Dr Nining Wahyuningrum from Watershed Management Technology Center said they had to postpone activities in communities due to the government no-gathering policy, and waited for the situation getting better. And Ms Chen Lin, Associate Professor, from Experimental Center of Tropical Forestry of Chinese Academy of Forestry, said, the Cambodia local partners conducted awareness-raising and training for local communities as the pandemic situation was getting better.
In response to all challenges that were met from APFNet project partners, Ms Anna Finke gave a presentation on APFNet project management under COVID-19. The presentation covered the aspects of initiating a new project, project changes, project monitoring and evaluation as well as conferences and training. And she stated that, under the pandemic, all project partners and APFNet should have more frequent communication, creative problem solving, keeping work plan flexible and having an increased focus on knowledge creation and sharing. Finally, she stated that this meeting was a great success and that in response to the pandemic, APFNet is planning to hold more online meetings as well.
The next public meeting on Forest Carbon Accounting titled "Holding Forests Accountable - APFNet Forest Carbon Accounting Zoom Webinar" is scheduled for December 8, 2021, from 14:00 to 17:00 Beijing time. To register, please click here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nrxJ6vJmQFOMmB6QGXkG7Q
To date, APFNet has funded a total of 58 projects, with 31 closed, 24 ongoing and 3 newly started. Under the pandemic, mostly the ongoing projects were and are influenced by COVID-19 related factors, including travel restrictions, delay or change of project activities, difficulties of providing international support and expertise, and an inability to conduct training and conferences. Despite the difficulties, the projects continued and, while perhaps some are delayed, to achieve the majority of project objectives. From this meeting, APFNet project partners shared their ideas and views on both positive and negative influences of the pandemic during APFNet project implementation and have benefited from this plethora of experiences.
Fig.1 Attendees of the online meeting ‘COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts in Forestry in the Asia-Pacific
Region’ organized by APFNet on 17th November 2021.
Region’ organized by APFNet on 17th November 2021.
Ms Anna Finke, Director of APFNet Project Management Division opened the meeting and welcomed all participants. Ms Shiyi Zhang, as moderator, introduced the main objectives of this meeting: providing an opportunity for project partners to share their experiences and views on APFNet project implementation and management under the COVID-19 crisis and improving communication and networking among the project partners. The meeting covered four topics including forestry education, training and career; forest construction and technology development; community forestry and forest restoration; and project management under the pandemic.
Topic 1: Forestry education, training and career
Capacity building is one of the important components of most APFNet projects. During this pandemic period, forestry education, training and career projects met tremendous difficulties, but the partners positively sought alternative solutions to conquer the difficulties. For example, due to the lockdown and international travel restrictions, Ms Pan Yao, Head of International Training and Communication Division of the APFNet Kunming Training Center said that they met tremendous difficulties in conducting workshops and organizing in-person field training. Therefore, they transformed the challenges into opportunities by upgrading their training products, re-examining the design of the thematic training programme and producing two publications in alignment with COP15, which is beneficial for further promoting the training in the future. APFNet Kunming Training Center has organized 23 workshops since 2009 and benefitted 355 forestry officials from 21 economies in the region.
In another instance, the pandemic situation has enhanced what they were started working on. “Asia-Pacific Forestry Education Coordination Mechanism (AP-FECM)" was initiated in 2014 and funded by APFNet and has been expanding the cooperation between universities and developing forestry education platforms within the region. The University of British Columbia (UBC) has been developing online courses on sustainable forest management in a project funded by APFNet, which opened a window to students who want to have forestry education from where they live within the Asia-Pacific region. Soon after the pandemic started,through this mechanism, online meetings with all the stakeholders in the different regions were organized to exchange their respective situations and to find better solutions to keep forestry education moving forward. Finally, there were six key action areas identified, including; providing teaching support to member universities and institutes with the project outputs of SFM online training courses, a virtual summer program to students, online dialogue with educational leaders, virtual lecture series on online teaching and learning, young scientists working association for virtual know sharing, and project promotion under COVID-19. While keeping these works on track, in 2020, more than 3000 students from 135 universities joined the innovative online courses, said Dr Wang Guangyu, Director of the AP-FECM.
Fig.2 Project promotion under COVID-19 for APFNet online courses development project.
Topic 2: Forest construction and technology development
In recent years, in developing multi-functional forestry, strengthening protection of germplasm resources, as well as establishing a regional platform for forestry information sharing and policy dialogue to promote sustainable forest management, APFNet supported projects involving the construction of facilities, such as several Forest Experience and Training Bases, a High-Value Tree Species Breeding Center, different greenhouses and arboretums, as well as some high-tech forest fire monitoring systems.
Three project partners from China, Cambodia and Myanmar presented respectively the issues they met during construction under the pandemic, such as international and domestic travel restrictions, increase in material and labour costs, delay in construction applying and approval process, etc.
Due to the difficulty of a frequent field visit by APFNet and executing agencies, Mr Li Zhaochen, Project Manager of APFNet Pu’er projects, explained that the project alternatively hired professional third-party construction supervisors to monitor the construction process and guarantee the quality of all steps, while Mr Sreng Syneath, Chief of Forest Development and Botanical Research Center of Institute of Forest and Wildlife Research and Development in Cambodia, mentioned that, they instructed local field staffs to complete the fieldwork, which proved to be a better way to guarantee the project progress. Also, as Mr Li Zhi, APFNet project manager experienced that reacting to these challenges, most meetings were moved to online platforms.
While based on the experience of Dr Ei Ei Hlaing, Assistant Director from Forest Research Institute of Forest Department, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation of Myanmar, they conduct the technical training on-site instead of indoors as planned previously.
Fig.3 Wooden house construction in APFNet Pu’er SFM Demonstration and Training Base in China during the pandemic.
The high-technology, such as forest fire monitoring and early warning system also played an irreplaceable role under the pandemic, which replaced the traditional fire monitoring with manpower. The system uses front-end monitoring equipment installed in the forest area and back-end command and control platforms in the control centre to monitor fire outbreaks in real-time. In 2020, APFNet further built four forest fire monitoring towers and two control centres in Wanzhangshan Forest Farm, which can monitor 50-60% of the total forest area in the Forest Farm. Since the system monitors forest fire automatically in real-time, which will not be affected by any restrictions under the pandemic.
Topic 3: Community forestry and forest restoration
Forest communities are highly important in implementing forest management, but as Ms Xin Shuyu, APFNet project manager observed from all related projects, communities are more vulnerable to the pandemic. In Cambodia, as Mr Sreng Syneath said, the most commonly reported impacts for the communities are higher food prices, lack of income sources, job losses, and reduced market demand for forest products. Meanwhile, in Lao PDR, Ms Tongngern Phongsavat stated that the livelihood of the community suffered from an income decrease and thus the risk of engaging in illegal activities to generate income increased. In Indonesia, Dr Nining Wahyuningrum from Watershed Management Technology Center said they had to postpone activities in communities due to the government no-gathering policy, and waited for the situation getting better. And Ms Chen Lin, Associate Professor, from Experimental Center of Tropical Forestry of Chinese Academy of Forestry, said, the Cambodia local partners conducted awareness-raising and training for local communities as the pandemic situation was getting better.
Fig.4 Hiring local forestry officials to distribute seeds to the communities in Indonesia.
Topic 4: Project management under the pandemicIn response to all challenges that were met from APFNet project partners, Ms Anna Finke gave a presentation on APFNet project management under COVID-19. The presentation covered the aspects of initiating a new project, project changes, project monitoring and evaluation as well as conferences and training. And she stated that, under the pandemic, all project partners and APFNet should have more frequent communication, creative problem solving, keeping work plan flexible and having an increased focus on knowledge creation and sharing. Finally, she stated that this meeting was a great success and that in response to the pandemic, APFNet is planning to hold more online meetings as well.
The next public meeting on Forest Carbon Accounting titled "Holding Forests Accountable - APFNet Forest Carbon Accounting Zoom Webinar" is scheduled for December 8, 2021, from 14:00 to 17:00 Beijing time. To register, please click here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nrxJ6vJmQFOMmB6QGXkG7Q
To date, APFNet has funded a total of 58 projects, with 31 closed, 24 ongoing and 3 newly started. Under the pandemic, mostly the ongoing projects were and are influenced by COVID-19 related factors, including travel restrictions, delay or change of project activities, difficulties of providing international support and expertise, and an inability to conduct training and conferences. Despite the difficulties, the projects continued and, while perhaps some are delayed, to achieve the majority of project objectives. From this meeting, APFNet project partners shared their ideas and views on both positive and negative influences of the pandemic during APFNet project implementation and have benefited from this plethora of experiences.
