CAF and MIT Partner to Protect Colombia’s Tropical Forests

During COP26, CAF—development bank of Latin America—and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) signed an agreement to help monitor landslides through drones, data management and innovative technologies, launching a novel early warning mechanism to reduce the climate vulnerability that has traditionally impacted the local communities of the Mocoa municipality in the Colombian Department of Putumayo. The project will also help preserve the biodiversity of the project’s area of influence.

The initiative is financed by the GEF in favor of the Colombian government, with CAF as implementing agency and in partnership with MIT, will assess 5,122 hectares of land for climate-resilient management, while collecting data from the use of modern infrastructure and technology to improve landslide monitoring.

“We must incorporate the use of technologies to improve current conditions and develop adaptability of local communities that are exposed to adverse climatic conditions; solutions like this help preserve biodiversity of key natural ecosystems,” said Julián Suárez Migliozzi, Vice President of Sustainable Development at CAF.

The initiative also calls for technological systems to capture images that have the capacity of no-point cloud processing developed through new algorithmic procedures. In addition, it will encourage the building of local technical capacities to encourage participation in risk management and the establishment of a network of community researchers.