Category:UNFCCC Implications for Forest Monitoring

Author of this article: Philip Beckschäfer
Global warming is putting the lives of millions of people around the world at risk and hence is one of the most serious challenges we are facing today. In order to protect the health and economic well-being of present and future generations, we need to reduce our emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases by all available means. Since almost 20% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are related to deforestation and forest degradation, forests have a huge potential for climate change mitigation. Furthermore, in general forest protection has strong synergies with biodiversity conservation and the abatement costs are perceived to be low compared to other sectors. Therefore, a broad consensus between developing an developed countries on “Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation" in developing countries; and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries (REDD+) was reached 2010 in Cancún. However, forestry projects can only be facilitated on the basis of sustainable management practices together with a suitably adapted forest monitoring system and within an adequate policy framework. The fundament of these requirements is reliable data and information on forests and forest related activities and in particular on the forest related carbon stocks and estimation on changes. Scientifically sound forest inventory and monitoring is one of the most relevant data sources for much of such information.