NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 16 – A new tool has been developed to provide planning solutions for farm and plantation forestry.
The Geospatial Forestry Platform (GFP) aims at making commercial markets more inclusive as well as managing sustainable supply of timber.
It works through a Geographical Information Systems (GIS) platform, which includes a functional database on remote sensing, Site Species Matching Tool (SSMT), climate change scenario, road network analysis, carbon monitoring, tree count and forest monitoring.
The idea of developing the Geospatial Forestry Platform arose from the need by Gatsby Africa to provide a forestry solution to small and medium scale forestry players who ordinarily would not have access to this information due to the high-cost implication.
Speaking during the launch of the Geospatial Forestry Platform, Director of Swift Geospatial Solutions Michael Breetzke said that the company aims to enable commercial market to be inclusive and engage with plantation forestry to manage sustainable supply of timber.
‘’One of the most useful outputs available in the Geospatial forestry platform are the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and it is a measure of how well a plant is growing and we are able to monitor it through high quality imagery,” he stated.
Michael Breetzke is the co-founder and director at Swift Geospatial. He started Swift Geospatial in 2016, with the main objective of bringing decision support to clients within the mining, agriculture, and forestry industry.
KOMAZA Managing Director Charles Gitahi stated that small scale tree growers should be informed on the correct method of tree planting, the quality of the tree, among others.
“In tree planting one cannot afford to make a mistake,” he said.
