By Abbas Nazil
Senegal is turning to artificial intelligence to protect its rapidly shrinking forests, deploying an automated carbon-mapping system to strengthen conservation efforts and guide national climate action.
The country loses an estimated 40,000 hectares of forest each year due to wildfires, illegal logging and human activities, weakening its role as a natural carbon sink and accelerating carbon emissions.
To confront these losses, the Direction des Eaux et Forêts, Chasses et de la Conservation des Sols is expanding digital and AI tools to track forest conditions, identify high-risk zones and generate accurate biomass estimates.
Forest rangers like Lieutenant Mamadou Diop in the Kolda region currently travel long distances weekly to collect tree measurements needed for carbon assessments, a process that is essential but slow and labour-intensive.
The Carbon Lense Senegal project, implemented by GIZ with the support of BMZ initiatives and in partnership with data354 and the Ministry of Environment and Ecological Transition, aims to replace these manual processes with AI-assisted carbon mapping informed by satellite imagery and local inventory data.
The initiative builds on the High Carbon Stock Approach previously tested in Indonesia, India and Ivory Coast, but requires updated scientific information on West African tree species.
To strengthen accuracy, the project is collaborating with the University of Ziguinchor to expand biomass research and improve species-level carbon data.
A recent field mission in the Boudié forest in Middle Casamance tested the national inventory protocol, where rangers, researchers and GIZ specialists measured plots and gathered biomass records in an area experiencing illegal logging and recurring burn scars.
Community leaders stressed the urgency of improved monitoring, noting that changing forest conditions threaten agroforestry livelihoods and worsen vulnerabilities to fire outbreaks.
The project plans to scale to additional ecological zones to build a national biomass map that reflects local realities and supports evidence-based climate policy.
Project partners emphasize that combining indigenous knowledge with advanced AI tools offers a practical model for conserving biodiversity while advancing Senegal’s commitments under the Paris Agreement.
