On October 25, 2022, the SFI project organised an online meeting on “Implementation of remote sensing methods for conducting a forest inventory in Ukraine”. The event was attended by Ihor Budzinsky, Нead of Forestry and Forest Regeneration Department of SFRA; Viktor Smal, Deputy Head of the State Forestry Agency for Digital Development, Digital Transformation and Digitalization; Viktor Melnychenko, General Director of Ukrainian State Forest Management Planning Association (Ukrderzhlisproekt); Viktor Myroniuk, national expert of SFI project; Christabel Duran, General Representative of the International Program for Sustainable Forest Management of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture; Bernd Wippel, Managing Director of Unique land use GmbH; Volker Sasse, CTA of SFI Project; Vitaliy Storozhuk, National Project Coordinator; Heino Polley, Axel Weinreich, international project experts.
Following the decisions of the recent Project Steering Group meeting of SFI project, held in September, options for the application of remote sensing based methods for an inventory of Ukrainian forest as well as the use of German specialised fonds in 2022-2023 were discussed. In light of shortages of state budget for NFI and limited access to forests due to occupation and damages by the Russian war, the conduction of a conceptual study on the expanded use of remote sensing tools and data in the national forest inventory was confirmed. This will require corresponding inventory tools as well as appropriate changes to the regulatory framework of forest inventory, whereas SFI project will assist Ukraine.
