Page 46 - 4. Pre-Course Reading-Training on Forestry Audit 2019
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Auditing Forests: Guidance for Supreme Audit Institutions
The following are examples of the output: 3. RESEARCH QUESTION: Has illegal
deforestation occurred in the national park,
Figure 1a conservation area, wildlife reserve, protected
Deforestation outside allowed area forest, and other conserved areas?
Minimum data required:
• Spatial data of forest zone determination.
• Spatial data of area coverage (time series).
• Spatial data of boundary of districts.
Data processing:
• Intersect spatial data of area coverage at the beginning of
the year with data taken from at the end of the year. This new
spatial data indicates the condition of the forest over a
46 particular area at the beginning and the end of the year.
Figure 1b • From this spatial data, do a selection based on certain attri-
Deforestation outside allowed area
butes. Select data which has the attribute of primary forest
in the beginning of the year and underbrush in the end of
the year.
• This selection results in spatial data that are a good indi-
cator of the amount of deforestation that has occurred.
• Intersect this spatial deforestation data with spatial data of
forest zone determination, to obtain deforestation data
complemented with in which area deforestation occurred.
• To identify in which district the deforestation occurred, inter-
sect the deforestation data with spatial data of district
boundaries. This intersection will show in which forest zone
and in which district deforestation occurred.
• Then, calculate the area, by changing the projection mode
first to Projected Coordinate System appropriate for such
area.
• Then, summarize the data to obtain a table showing the
area of deforestation for each forest zone and in which
district that deforestation occurred.
• An example showing typical results follows:
• From the GIS output, we see that Protected Forest
should be the object of the audit as it has the highest
deforestation.
• It also could be seen that there is deforestation covers
58,50 acres in National Park. Then, select one location in
deforestation area (area in green circle in Figure 2 below).
• After obtaining deforestation area in green circle, we
further observe the area by utilizing Google Earth. Google
earth enables to zoom into those detected deforestation area.
• This will give satellite photos that identify which area
that are no longer primary forest (Figure 3).
Ground check:
• To validate our analysis, we use GPS.
• Enter the deforestation area coordinates we would like
to visit into the GPS.
• Use GPS to navigate us to the area of deforestation.
• Once we arrive at the area, prepare the observation report.
