Lilongwe — TANZANIA, through the Tanzania Forest Service (TFS), has joined other African countries in an international workshop that discussed new methods for measuring and monitoring the amount of carbon sequestered by trees growing outside forests, known as Trees Outside Forests (TOF).

The two-day workshop, in Malawi under the coordinated of Michigan State University (MSU), in collaboration with universities and research institutions from Malawi, Senegal, and the United States.

Tanzania is represented by two conservationists from TFS, Rogers Nyinondi and Jameseth Lazaro, who were invited due to TFS's role in coordinating the implementation of the national plan to restore natural vegetation through the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100).

Through the program, Tanzania has pledged to restore approximately 5.2 million hectares of degraded land by 2030.

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TFS Senior Conservator, Rogers Nyinondi, said Tanzania's participation has increased scientific understanding of the contribution of trees outside forests, including agroforestry, to mitigating the impacts of climate change.

He noted that the new methods they were provided with will improve carbon data collection, strengthen policy planning, and increase the effectiveness of land restoration projects in various parts of the country.

According to the Principal Trainer from Michigan State University (MSU), Prof. David L. Skole, the workshop has provided a major technical step in carbon monitoring using high-resolution satellite remote sensing technologies, deep machine learning, and allometric scaling models, methods that enable the identification and measurement of individual trees across thousands of hectares.

Skole said the training, which concluded today, aimed to help member countries strengthen their systems for verifying environmental restoration data and lay a solid foundation for land management in Africa.

The workshop brought together scientists and experts from Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, DRC, Senegal, India, and Malawi, as well as AFR100 stakeholders, to discuss the progress of the MSU-funded international project.