4th GOFC-GOLD REDD Sourcebook development workshop

This symposium took place in July 2010. Below you can find a description of the contents of the symposium and whenever available, the presentations that were given by the invited speakers.

Date

5-9 July 2010

Organization

  • GOFC-GOLD Project Office and Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service
  • Center for Geoinformation, Wageningen University, Netherlands

Description

GOFC-GOLD encourages countries to increase their ability to measure and track forest and land cover dynamics by promoting and supporting participation on implementation teams and in regional networks. Through these forums, data users and providers share information to improve understanding of user requirements and product quality. GOFC-GOLD is a panel of the Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS), sponsored by FAO, UNESCO, WMO, ICSU and UNEP.

As a contribution to the UNFCCC process for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), GOFC-GOLD has organized three previous technical workshops:

The activities have resulted in several updates of the GOFC-GOLD “Sourcebook of Methods and Procedures for Monitoring and Reporting Anthropogenic Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Removals Caused By Deforestation, Gains and Losses of Carbon Stocks in Forests Remaining Forests, and Forestation”. The Sourcebook version COP 15.1 was released for the UNFCCC COP 15 and is available for download (http://www.gofc-gold.uni-jena.de/redd/index.php).

Objectives

  • Present and discuss UNFCCC-related developments and evolving requirements (i.e. from IPCC GHG inventory meeting) for monitoring forest carbon changes in developing countries.
  • Discuss key challenging issues and formulate technical and methodological recommendations to support building national-level REDD MRV capabilities, data collection and develop national implementation strategies. The aim is to expand and improve what is already provided by the current Sourcebook, to expand to new topics that have been brought up in the recent political discussions and to incorporate the technical experiences at the national level, with a particular focus on:
  1. Synthesizing experiences from developing countries working on REDD MRV development with particular emphasis on lessons learned from applying the current Sourcebook.
  2. increasing understanding of the drivers and processes of forest carbon stock change and safeguards, and related links to policy developments at the national level.
  3. Assessing evolving technologies, including activities of the GEO Forest Carbon Tracking task and Google Earth.
  4. Monitoring forest regrowth and degradation/changes in remaining forest areas to address issues related to sustainable forest management, forest conservation, and increase in forest carbon stocks. 
  5. Methods and experiences on the accuracy assessments for forest area and area change.
  6. Management of information flows and building data infrastructures for estimation, reporting and uncertainty analysis and management on the national level
  • Develop an action plan for Sourcebook updating. All current Sourcebook authors and new experts will be invited and asked to participate in the next round of Sourcebook updates. 
  • Outline developments and discuss contributions of GOFC-GOLD to related international activities and processes (UNFCCC, national and regional activities, IPCC, UN-REDD, GEO).
  • Discuss the implications for global forest monitoring and broader GOFC-GOLD objectives.