By Saidu Jalloh, Daily Scope
Freetown, April 18, 2026 The Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, with European Union funding and technical support from the Food and Agriculture Organisation, will roll out a mangrove data collection campaign across the Western Area and parts of the North-East and Southern regions under the National Forest Inventory programme.
The exercise falls under the “Support to Sustainable Forestry in Sierra Leone” project, which seeks to improve forest and land-use change data at national and sub-national levels. The data will guide policy decisions, strengthen sustainable forest management, and improve the country’s capacity to track forest cover dynamics. The initiative aligns with Sierra Leone’s Sustainable Development Goals and FAO’s Country Programming Framework.
Ahead of field deployment, the ministry and FAO ran a five-day mangrove-focused training from April 13 to 17 to prepare inventory teams for the technical and operational demands of mangrove assessment. The sessions covered mangrove dynamics, fieldwork in challenging wetland conditions, mangrove-specific cluster and plot procedures, and consistent, safe measurement practices. Topics included plot design differences between mangrove and upland sites, line clusters versus L-shape layouts, sub-plots, DBH thresholds, and species identification. Trainers also stressed safety precautions, tide planning, and best practices for measuring difficult stems in watery conditions.
Director of Forestry Madam Kate Karemo-Garnett said the training will improve field readiness for accurate and consistent data collection and prepare teams for effective implementation of the mangrove campaign. NFI international experts Anibal Cuchietti, Falgoonee Kumar Mondal, and Salis Antonello, alongside national expert Dr Anthony Lamine-Samu, emphasized that the quality of data gathered will directly inform national policy decisions.
Following the training, the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change will deploy data collectors to mangrove areas to begin the inventory work. The results are expected to provide the first comprehensive national baseline on mangrove resources in decades.
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