US, Thomson Reuters to map, document land rights in West Africa
The US Forest Service has selected Thomson Reuters to map and document land rights in West Africa.
This is part of an effort to promote sustainable use of natural resources, protect the environment, and create a source of income for the rural poor in the threatened Upper Guinean Tropical Forest.
The Upper Guinean Tropical Forest is one of eight major biomes in West Africa and originally covered an estimated 1.3 million kilometers across Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Togo.
In a statement July 19, 2012, Thomson Reuters said the Forest Service is implementing the Sustainable and Thriving Environments for West African Regional Development (STEWARD) programme to strengthen natural resource management, climate change adaptation, and environmental education in the trans-boundary-protected areas of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, and Ivory Coast, all of which contain portions of this tropical forest ecosystem.
As a partner in STEWARD Phase III, Thomson Reuters said it will train three West African communities to document and map land and resource rights, utilizing the company’s “OpenTitle” software.
The information collected will be sent to a geographic information system (GIS) center to be created under the direction of Thomson Reuters at the STEWARD office in Freetown, Sierra Leone, it added.
The GIS center will integrate the STEWARD data with geographic information on company lease rights, public lands, natural resources, species mapping, and other content, the statement indicated.
The STEWARD programme, now in its third phase, is funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
By Ekow Quandzie