A framework for structuring the global forest monitoring landscape in the REDD+ era

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Abstract

The proposed launch of a Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) scheme by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change provides a new incentive to improve global forest monitoring. By evaluating the state-of-the-art in government and scientific monitoring this paper shows that enhancements and new standards are needed for three key monitoring roles – measurement, reporting and verification – for governments at national scale and scientists at global scale. It outlines a new knowledge exchange matrix framework that can match different organizations to monitoring roles. Conversion of data into useful knowledge is represented by a knowledge exchange chain comprising a series of cycles, each divided into data collection, information production, reporting, verification and synthesis stages. Each stage potentially involves operational, facilitating and coordinating functions at local to global scales. Combining stages, functions and scales forms the knowledge exchange matrix. Organizations are matched to cells in the matrix by their competence and rules governing their operation. Applying the matrix to global forest monitoring shows that existing organizations can contribute complementary facilitating and coordinating functions to support REDD+. Yet none can harness satellite data operationally to produce information at the required spatial and temporal resolution. Two empty national and global operational niches could be filled by new national measurement, reporting and verification systems, operated by governments and facilitated by the Group on Earth Observations and other bodies; and an autonomous science-based World Forest Observatory whose information base could advance global change science and help to verify national REDD+ reports.

Introduction

The Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change are considering a proposal to establish a Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) scheme to reduce rates of forest change in developing countries (UNFCCC, 2010a). If agreed, it would be the first attempt to manage forests at global scale, and add ‘avoided deforestation’ to existing mitigation mechanisms in the global climate change regime. Discussed by scientists for some time (e.g. Fearnside, 2001, Brown et al., 2002), the potential for reducing carbon emissions under different REDD arrangements is receiving increasing scrutiny (e.g. Niles, 2002, Kindermann et al., 2006, Kindermann et al., 2008, Brown et al., 2007, Mollicone et al., 2007, Ebeling and Yasue, 2008, Strassburg et al., 2009). The scope of REDD has been expanded during UNFCCC negotiations to include sustainable management of forests and conservation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks. The name “REDD+” is now used to reflect this (Campbell, 2009).

Reducing forest-related carbon emissions will not be as easy as many commentators imagine, however. Official and scientific discussions of REDD+ neglect obstacles to controlling deforestation that undermined previous global initiatives and still constrain governments (Grainger, 1993). Scientific studies also ignore wider equity issues (Okereke and Dooley, 2009), typically estimating the costs of REDD+ in terms of carbon prices that reflect developed country conditions, rather than the need to compensate developing countries for development foregone by not exploiting their forests or the lands beneath them (Grainger, 1997). This will feature in any eventual political agreement, and constrain the scope for action. It will also be difficult to prove that the forest change rate has actually declined, owing to the potential for avoidance to be merely temporary; transfer (or ‘leakage’) of deforestation to poorly protected areas or countries; and difficulties in determining baseline deforestation rates against which reductions are computed (Schlamadinger et al., 2005, Obersteiner et al., 2009).

REDD+ implementation will therefore require careful monitoring to determine the actual scale of emissions reductions. This is particularly important since financial support to developing countries in exchange for reductions could extend to many billions of US dollars. The exact details of REDD+ remain to be decided at the time of writing, but it is likely to be funded by intergovernmental transfers and market mechanisms (UNFCCC, 2010b).

Given the huge area of forests in developing countries satellite remote sensing seems ideal for this monitoring task. Most studies of the potential for REDD+ monitoring focus on technologies (e.g. DeFries et al., 2007, Herold and Johns, 2007, Persson and Azar, 2007, Böttcher et al., 2009, Goetz et al., 2009). Far less attention has been paid to organizational aspects at national and global scales, and to how remote sensing data can be converted into knowledge that national governments and the UNFCCC can use. The latest draft of a REDD+ agreement divides this process into measuring, reporting and verification (MRV) stages (UNFCCC, 2010b). Baker et al. (2010) argue that each country will require its own MRV system to produce REDD+ reports, while experts verifying these reports for the Parties to the UNFCCC will need access to empirical evidence from an independent global monitoring system. The success of both activities, the authors claim, will depend on better coordination of satellite data collection, and assistance to developing countries in establishing national MRV systems.

Organizational aspects cannot be taken for granted. Forest monitoring systems are poorly developed in most developing countries (Hardcastle et al., 2008). In the last 40 years, for example, only half of tropical countries have had two national forest area surveys (Grainger, 2009). There is also still no continuous global operational monitoring system for forests (or any other terrestrial environmental feature) at the resolution at which Landsat and other satellites have collected data since 1972 (Goward, 2007), though such a system was proposed for tropical forests by Grainger (1984), and for global land cover by Skole et al. (1997). The only available global forest information set with national resolution is the Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) series of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO, 2006). As this simply compiles national statistics based on occasional forest surveys its accuracy is limited (Grainger, 2008). Converting satellite data into usable information at large spatial scale is a huge organizational challenge. The European Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) programme was launched in 1998 (Achache, 2001) “to deliver information which corresponds to user needs” (EC, 2008) but is yet to finalize an operational information delivery system.

This paper therefore goes further than Baker et al. (2010) by looking in more detail at organizational aspects. Given the limited development of national and global forest monitoring it is important to identify the new information standards that Parties to the UNFCCC may expect REDD+ monitoring to meet, compare these with existing de facto standards, and identify ways to enhance the latter to meet the new standards. Part three of this paper reviews state-of-the art practices of forest measuring, reporting and verification by governments and scientists at national and pan-tropical scales, and proposes ‘gold standards’ needed for reliable REDD+ monitoring.

While it is recognized that existing monitoring arrangements must be improved to meet REDD+ needs, so far potential funding agencies may be unclear if activities are already duplicated or if key roles remain unfilled. To reduce confusion this paper applies an innovative framework, the knowledge exchange matrix, to identify all functions needed for REDD+ monitoring and match organizations to these. Part two outlines how the knowledge exchange chain framework divides into five stages the construction and use of knowledge by different groups. It then extends this by combining the stages with operational, facilitating and coordinating functions at local, national and global scales to give the knowledge exchange matrix. Parts four and five assess which organizations can fill required monitoring activities.

The paper finds two empty operational niches. The niche at national scale could be filled by new national measurement, reporting and verification systems, operated by governments and facilitated by the Group on Earth Observations and other bodies. The niche at global scale could be filled by an autonomous science-based World Forest Observatory, whose information base could not only verify national REDD+ reports but also advance global change science.

Section snippets

Modelling science–policy communication

Current theories of the communication of scientific knowledge to policy makers refer to a two-way process of exchange, not the one-way transfer in earlier models. In the boundary organization model, for example, representatives of the science and policy domains meet, in bodies called boundary organizations, to negotiate the translation of scientific knowledge into lay language, in ways that optimize salience, legitimacy and credibility (Fig. 1) (Cash et al., 2003).

This model is useful for

Identifying and meeting possible standards for REDD+ monitoring

Scientists, governments, intergovernmental organizations and non-governmental organizations already monitor forests. This section assesses current practices in the five stages of knowledge construction to: (a) identify possible gold standards for REDD+; (b) enhancements needed to meet these; and (c) activities required to achieve such enhancements. It looks in turn at governmental and scientific practices, mainly in Cycles 2–3 of the knowledge exchange chain.

REDD+ will probably focus initially

International organizations with global environmental monitoring interests

Various organizations could contribute the operational, facilitating and coordinating activities identified in the last section. This section identifies the functions, scales of activity and institutions of some prominent international organizations.

The Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) was established in 1984 to coordinate the activities of space agencies that launch and operate satellites (Mohr, 1999). It has 19 members, plus governments and inter-governmental organizations as

Applying the knowledge exchange matrix to global forest monitoring

The knowledge exchange matrix is now applied to match groups to the priority activities needed for effective REDD+ monitoring identified earlier (Table 1). Special attention is given to international organizations reviewed in the last section (Table 2). Contributions by governments, scientists, non-governmental organizations and individual citizens are described generically. Table 3 summarizes the results, representing area and carbon monitoring by lines A and C, respectively.

Conclusions

The knowledge exchange matrix can identify global monitoring functions and match different organizations to these. Applying it to global forest monitoring shows that existing organizations can contribute complementary facilitating and coordinating functions to support REDD+. Yet none can harness satellite data operationally to produce information at sufficient spatial and temporal resolution to monitor REDD+ implementation. Two empty operational niches are apparent. These could be filled by a

Alan Grainger is Senior Lecturer in Geography at the University of Leeds, UK. Before that he was on the staff of Resources for the Future, Washington DC, Salford University and Stirling University. He was awarded a D.Phil. in Forest Economics by the University of Oxford. Since the early 1980s he has specialized in modelling and monitoring tropical deforestation and desertification, and is the author of 89 publications in these fields.

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    Alan Grainger is Senior Lecturer in Geography at the University of Leeds, UK. Before that he was on the staff of Resources for the Future, Washington DC, Salford University and Stirling University. He was awarded a D.Phil. in Forest Economics by the University of Oxford. Since the early 1980s he has specialized in modelling and monitoring tropical deforestation and desertification, and is the author of 89 publications in these fields.

    Michael Obersteiner is Research Scholar in the Forestry Programme of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenberg, Austria, and Research Economist in the Department of Economics and Finance at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Agriculture and Forestry in Vienna. Before joining IIASA, Dr. Obersteiner was visiting scientist at the Institute for Economics and Industrial Organization, Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, and Fullbright Research Assistant at the University of Washington in Seattle. He is the author of over 80 scientific papers and consultancy reports.

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