MONROVIA – Liberia’s protected areas are important to sustaining conservation, but this can only be done when an integrated Management Effectiveness Tool (IMET) is put in place to avoid potential risk to the sector.
It is upon this backdrop, that the European Union Supported Gola-PAP for Project has kicked off a four-day training that will help those managing Liberia’s protected reserved detect potential risk to the sector.
The training organized by Society for the Conservation of Nature and partners well inform participants, mostly from the Gola-Forest reserve area on using new technological software to track daily information on how to sustainably manage the protected area.
“The IMET is the number-one conservation technology, currently being used across the world to manage conservation,” said Michael Garbo, Executive Director of Society for the Conservation of Nature Liberia, on Tuesday, while making remarks at the start the training.
Garbo said the training, when completed, will take Liberia to another level on grounds that gab confronting the conservation sector is not only limited to the country alone.
He noted that the technology software is important to Liberia at this time when there is a key need to catalog information on protected areas; adding “It is used in other areas and that is why we brought someone from Burundi to bring this to Liberia.”
According to him, there are more areas in Liberia that need to be managed, but it had been done manually through handwritings, and the software would be more effective.
“It will detect all that is unfolding in the conservation sector for a possible solution,” he added.
For his part, the Forestry Development Authority’s Technical Manager for Conservation, Blamah A. Goll described IMET as a new eye-opener for Liberia and that it is not meant to put aside old ideas being used by those in the sector rather an addition.
“Don’t look at it as a new thing, but look at it as a plus to what you have been doing, because it will plan your programs properly to achieve your deliverables when it comes to sustaining conservation,” Mr. Goll averred.
According to him, the software will help those in the sector make sound decisions to protect affected areas. Hill urged participants to take advantage of the training and to apply it to their daily activities for the restoration of Liberia’s forest landscape.
He then lauded the EU and partners for organizing the training, noting that knowledge that would be shared will greatly impact law enforcement in protected areas, Eco-Tourism, and awareness of the conservation sector.
The FDA Technical Manager of Conservation also stated that the software will help in information gathering for Bio-monitoring at protected areas.
He, at the same time maintained that IMET will not be used in one aspect of the protected areas, but to ensure that potential threats in the sectors turn into opportunities.
