Forestry Department gets high-tech monitoring boost

Jamaica’s Forestry Department has acquired advanced drone and data-management technology that officials say will improve the country’s ability to monitor forests, assess environmental damage, and guide restoration efforts in the wake of increasingly severe climate events.

The agency, on Friday, received a Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) drone and a new Forest Management System (FMS), equipment valued at just over US$210,000 ($33 million) combined. The investment is expected to strengthen the department’s ability to collect, analyse, and manage forest data across the island.

Ainsley Henry, chief executive officer and conservator of forests, described the acquisition as a major upgrade in the agency’s monitoring capabilities at a time when climate change is placing growing pressure on Jamaica’s forests.

“Accurate and reliable information” is critical to protecting the country’s forest resources, Henry said, particularly as the sector confronts more frequent environmental shocks.

The Trinity Pro VTOL drone is equipped with a multispectral sensor, a 61-megapixel camera and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology, allowing the Forestry Department to survey large areas more quickly and in greater detail than traditional methods.

The technology will support vegetation monitoring, land-cover classification, high-resolution mapping and three-dimensional assessments of forest terrain. It is also expected to improve the agency’s ability to assess damage from forest fires and other environmental threats, track changes over time, and better target restoration efforts.

The new Forest Management System addresses a different challenge: the handling of information.

For years, forest data have been processed through multiple platforms, increasing the risk of errors and slowing the production of reports. The new system consolidates those functions into a single workflow, enabling information collected in the field to be processed, analysed, and reported more efficiently.

“This centralised data warehouse now serves as a source of truth for forest and management information,” Henry said.

He added that Forestry Department personnel and partners have already been trained in drone operations, data collection, and analysis, enabling them to deploy the equipment and use the resulting information to support decision-making.

Restoration

The technology arrives as the department faces the task of monitoring more than half a million hectares of forest while assessing damage caused by Hurricane Melissa.

United Nations Development Programme resident representative Kishan Khoday said the investment would strengthen Jamaica’s capacity to monitor, manage, and restore its forests.

“This piece of technology, digitisation, and modernisation of the task of ecosystem restoration, is an important piece of that puzzle,” he said.

Khoday noted that the LiDAR-enabled drone can generate detailed three-dimensional images of forest ecosystems and complement both satellite imagery and ground-based assessments. Combined with the Forest Management System, he said, the technology would support more detailed environmental monitoring and evidence-based restoration planning.

Taneque Heslop, the Nationally Determined Contribution Partnership’s in-country facilitator for Jamaica, said the handover marked the completion of two linked initiatives: the Accelerated National Forestry Inventory Programme and Phase Two of the Land Use and Land Cover Change Assessment.

“What we are marking today is more than an equipment handover. Together, these tools form the core of a National Forest Information Monitoring System,” Heslop said.

She said the system would be especially valuable in assessing Hurricane Melissa’s impact on forests, guiding recovery efforts and helping Jamaica track progress towards its climate commitments.

The equipment was provided through support from the NDC Partnership Action Fund and the UNDP Multi-Country Office.