Benefits from REDD+ in Southeast Asia' (MB-REDD), implemented by SNV - The Netherlands Development Organization in collaboration with the. National and sub-national government institutions, as well as local stakeholders, including local communities, each have a specific role to play in these carbon accounting requirements of national REDD+. The Cancun Agreement (2010) calls on Parties to the UNFCCC to promote and support a number of safeguards when undertaking REDD+ activities, including, among others, 'the full and effective participation of relevant stakeholders, in particular indigenous peoples and local communities '.
National and sub-national institutions, together with local actors, each have specific roles to play in the development and implementation of national REDD+3 programmes; from the development of forest and related land use mitigation strategies, to the implementation and monitoring of REDD+ activities. 3 This guidance document focuses on national REDD+ programmes, but is equally applicable to other sub-national scales of the REDD+ programme.
Defining participatory carbon monitoring
Potential benefits and limitations
Cost-effectiveness – The use of PCM approaches has the potential to be more cost-effective than CO2 monitoring carried out solely by government agencies or external technical experts (Skutsch et al. Connecting local knowledge – PCM approaches provide opportunities to integrate valuable local knowledge into governance considerations and decision-making processes on the sustainable use of forest resources Data quality control – Data quality depends on existing technical capacity and resources available to participating stakeholders.
Aims, scope and audience
When implementing a PCM approach, local participants must be compensated in some form (financial and/or in-kind contributions) for assuming responsibilities. In addition to direct participation payments, indirect incentives that can attract sustained commitment to a PCM approach include: creating a dialogue on resource use between local stakeholders and government; increased importance and legitimacy in management. Low Emission Development Planning - (LEDP) is a multi-stakeholder process to meet pro-poor economic development with sustainable land and forest use planning, while reducing carbon emissions within a chosen jurisdiction (Stephen 2013).
PCM is a process that can ensure that local stakeholders have the knowledge and capacity to evaluate various low-carbon developments. Benefit Sharing Mechanisms – PCM approaches can assist in the transparent and equitable sharing and distribution of benefits (in cash or in kind, individual or collective) across the range of stakeholders implementing REDD+ activities. A PCM approach could provide local actors with an important source of information regarding their performance and serve as a 'self-check' on the benefits awarded to them under a national REDD+ programme.
If benefit-sharing mechanisms are used as an incentive based on participation, stakeholders would be compensated for the data collected and. To design and improve effective REDD+ interventions, NFMS should be used to inform national policies and local actions taken to achieve emissions reductions and increased removals in a country or jurisdiction. Local stakeholders are likely to provide data inputs on emission/removal activities more frequently than a national monitoring program, thus providing faster and more frequent information to improve and adapt policies and measures and inform adaptive management at the local level of activity implementation.
This document is also intended for those agencies with historical responsibilities for forest inventory and monitoring that would be central to the operation of NFMS for REDD+, as well as those providing technical assistance to these national and subnational institutions.
Participating stakeholder groups
National government institutions with existing forest inventory and monitoring responsibilities have three basic PCM functions: 1) quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) by .. developing national data protocols and standards;. Sub-national government institutions act as a link between national government agencies across hierarchical levels and local stakeholders. Local stakeholders – owners, managers and users of forests and border forest lands – are crucial to the implementation of PCM, as they are the actors implementing REDD+ activities and represent a large (cheap) labor force with local knowledge.
These actors, which include but are not necessarily limited to local people, and may include individuals and entities of the civil society sector, should be engaged in the development of REDD+ activities through a participatory consultation process in which local actors can inform national and subnational agencies about local land use practices, historical trends in land use and land cover, their interaction with forests and general cultural beliefs (Scheyvens et al., 2013). Such information allows for further understanding of local land use practices that may lead to GHGs. reducing or eliminating emissions, thereby assisting national and sub-national agencies in developing effective REDD+ programs and plans respectively. In the PCM, local actors have the roles of: 1) applying national data collection and management protocols to generate data that will be aggregated in the SFMS;.
Training sub-national agencies on the operational and technical aspects of PCM and the use of data protocols and standards. Conduct basic analysis of PCM data and/or access information from NFMS to inform improvement of management interventions (REDD+ activities). Development of international best practice knowledge products and national context specific solutions for operational and technical PCM. Exchange of knowledge and experience on operational and technical aspects of PCM.
Contribute to the ongoing dialogue on the development of PCM and facilitate the introduction of progress in the process of inclusive and adaptive management.
Integrating participatory carbon monitoring into the national
Activity data
Activity data (AD) is defined by the IPCC (2006) as data on the extent of anthropogenic activity over a given time period that results in emissions. The measurement of such activity data can be monitored with remote sensing technologies that detect changes in land use, or by sampling such as All stakeholder groups can contribute to the various steps in generating activity data (see Figure 3).
Below is a summary of the main stakeholder functions and the process of generating activity data using the PCM approach. Capacity Assessment and Improvement : A realistic understanding of existing capacity and existing infrastructure is key to generating activity data. National institutions should prepare needs assessments to identify the necessary capacity and infrastructure to collect activity data.
The outcome of these needs assessments will inform the strategies for developing and improving capacity and infrastructure at all levels of stakeholders for generating activity data. Collection and compilation of data sources: As mentioned earlier, there is spatial and non-spatial activity data. Spatially explicit activity data: will involve complex remote sensing interpretation and analysis using Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
The various non-spatial activity data can be collected at the sub-national institution before being transferred to the national institution.
Emission/removal factors
The results of these needs assessments must form the basis of the strategies for developing and improving capacity and infrastructure for EC/RF production. Assessment of emission sources: The assessment of the cause of emissions and removals should be carried out by local stakeholders with oversight from sub-national institutions. Using a PCM approach, local knowledge of common land use practices leading to GHG emissions/removals can be collected and disseminated to the national institutions to inform the types of EC/RFs to be generated.
There are several ways to design a sampling strategy for forest carbon across a landscape, but it must ensure that data quality meets the requirements of IPCC guidance and use the principles of conservatism and consistency so that data collection can be compared across the country. Field data collection should follow the elaborated sampling design and protocols, and can be carried out by local stakeholders with oversight from national and subnational institutions. With proper training, the methods used for field data collection can be learned by most individuals, regardless of formal training, and thus local communities can effectively carry out such data collection (UN-REDD, 2011; . Scheyvens et al., 2013) .
Quality control measures (ie QA/QC protocols) should be used by sub-national institutions to ensure the quality of data collection in the field and to allow assessment of uncertainty from data collection. As far as practicable, data entry should be performed by the same staff who managed data collection in the field (ie, field team leader). Using the same participants for data entry as collection can reduce errors associated with overwriting field data.
QC protocols) should be used by sub-national institutions to ensure the accuracy of the data entered.
A participatory approach to monitoring forest carbon stocks and flows, and changes in forest cover and forest conservation status can contribute to the carbon accounting requirements essential for a national REDD+. Similar operational and technical guidelines should be developed to expand the scope of PCM applications in low-emission subnational development planning; sharing benefits (and responsibilities) in the results-oriented action phase of REDD+; and informing national policy reforms and adaptive management of the implementation of REDD+ activities on the ground. From these practical experiences, second-generation guidance, together with more interactive decision support tools8, can be developed to promote more cost-effective forest monitoring practices, not only for REDD+ but for multiple management interventions and policy approaches.
Implementing a participatory approach to carbon monitoring could be possible. seem redundant in the absence of REDD+ and the need to take into account emission reductions and enhanced removals. Impact of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation and Improving Forest Carbon Stocks (I-REDD+), Copenhagen. United Nations Cooperation Program to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD), Hanoi.
2011, "Why Monitoring Community Forests?" in Monitoring Community Forests for Carbon Market Opportunities under REDD. Land use and low-emission forest planning at the sub-national level in Southeast Asia, LEAF Synthesis Workshop Report, February 21013. Methodological guidance for activities related to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and the role of conservation, .
National Forest Monitoring Systems: Monitoring and Measurement, Reporting and Verification (M & MRV) in the context of REDD+ Activities.
Technical resources for participatory carbon
