Thanks to the mutual interest of collaborating in the exchange of experiences and technology transfer between CONAP’s Monitoring and Evaluation Center, Guatemala (CEMEC) and CONABIO’s technical advisors, a working session was held on January the 22nd in Mexico City, with the objective of establishing a bi-directional process with interinstitutional benefit. One of the main topics was to exchange experiences in the management of the Monitoring Activity Data for the Mexican REDD+ Program (MAD-MEX), developed by CONABIO; the institution also briefly presented its biodiversity monitoring systems and how it has integrated databases through the work of multidisciplinary teams.
For their part, CEMEC/ WCS colleagues presented progress on the 6th Governance Monitoring Report for the Mayan Biosphere Reserve, whose main objective is to support those responsible for the management of the Guatemalan part of the reserve in making informed decisions. Additionally the Selva Maya Climate Atlas, made with climatological data from the three undersigned countries of this important region, was presented in its current state. Finally, they reported how through the SMART (Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool) system data have been integrated into statistics for the past five years and hereby supporting the management of different protected areas in Guatemala. The CONABIO team showed special interest in knowing a little more about this application and its codes, as well as the development of the data models.
Some of the main outcomes of the meeting were:
- Initiate discussions to generate an inter-institutional collaboration instrument between CONABIO and CONAP.
- CEMEC will send detailed information about SMART and download data from sensors.
- The communication CONABIO – CEMEC will continue, to detail the following steps.
