Goal and objective of the FKMC
The goal of establishing FKMC at WGCF-NR is to lay the foundation for making the college the go-to-place in Ethiopia for forestry issues by establishing a national center for knowledge management, forestry data archiving and retrieving. This will support national efforts in making data, information and knowledge in forestry easily accessible to users, and greatly assist the college’s endeavors of becoming a Digital Campus in forestry education and training.
Moreover, the Center enhances the college’s commitment to support and work to fulfill the national Green Legacy Initiative (GLI) objectives through providing platform to exchange good practices and experiences by the renowned professionals. These can be achieved through:
- Tailored trainings in data collection and inventory
- GIS and Remote sensing Degraded area mapping and forest boundary demarcation
- Fields manuals of the different trainings
- Proposal development and evaluation with regard to ‘The Green Legacy and Degraded Landscape Restoration Special Fund’
- Sawmilling and value additions (including logging and conversion) towards green job creation
- Benefit sharing
- Processing and marketing of forest products (including non-timber forest product
- Partner with communities in conserving forests
- Raise awareness about the role of forests in sustaining agriculture and human health
- Involve in encouraging sustainable farming that integrates forests and biodiversity
- Promote conservation efforts to combat desertification, deforestation and habitat loss
- Support Government initiatives for afforestation and forest protection
- Inspire individual action in environmental conservation that include Public Private Partnership (PPP) towards more sustainable future
Furthermore, the college aspires to be a ’third party verifier’ and establishing more carbon mitigation instruments that could help incentivize private sector involvement and investment in Voluntary Carbon Marketing (VCM) projects; since building local expertise and knowledge in broad carbon markets and other mitigation strategies is essential for efficient execution and management of VCM initiatives. Despite the challenges, the immense potential rewards of embracing VCMs offer a unique opportunity for Africa to contribute substantively to global climate objectives while advancing its own developmental, improving environmental quality and resilience agendas. The path ahead is intricate, but through a concerted and unified approach, African nations can unlock the transformative potential of VCMs, thereby securing a brighter and more sustainable future for the continent and beyond.