REDD+ is a policy framework under which developing countries can receive results-based payments for activities related to: reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, conserving and enhancing forest carbon stocks, and sustainable management of forests. For this, countries must develop future projections of forest-related greenhouse gas emissions (“forest reference emission levels”, or FRELs) based on historical emissions calculated through a national forest monitoring system (NFMS). The UNFCCC specifies that the “transparency, completeness, consistency, and accuracy” (TCCA) of the forest area changes and emissions calculations should be as high as possible. However, various scientific (e.g. data availability) and/or policy factors (e.g. budget and capacity of national mapping agencies) may affect the levels of TCCA a country can realistically achieve. In this study, we investigated how different national and international scientific and policy factors affect the TCCA of countries’ NFMS using qualitative and quantitative analysis. The analysis involved document review and text analysis of the 25 NFMS/FRELs already submitted to the UNFCCC and relevant scientific (e.g. FAO Forest Resource Assessment country reports from 2005, 2010, and 2015) and policy documents (e.g. UNFCCC decisions related to NFMS/FREL).
Results/Conclusions
All countries’ NFMS had high levels of transparency and completeness, while levels of consistency and accuracy varied significantly between countries. The high transparency and completeness for all countries was likely due to the clear definitions of these terms in the UNFCCC REDD+ decisions. “Consistency” is discussed more broadly in several different ways in the UNFCCC decisions (e.g. consistency of mapping approach over time, consistency of forest definition with that of other national greenhouse gas inventories), and not all types of consistency were adhered to. The types of accuracy to be assessed/reported were also not explicitly defined in UNFCCC decisions, so some types of accuracy (e.g. forest change mapping accuracy) were often not reported (or calculated improperly). Variations in levels of consistency and accuracy between countries were not always well explained by national science/policy factors. For example, we found no relationship between a country’s forest mapping technical capacity and their likeliness to report forest change mapping accuracy (their likeliness of reporting it was instead related to the mapping methodology employed). Our results suggest that some TCCA aspects of the NFMS are related to national science/policy factors, while others are related more to the clarity of guidance from the UNFCCC.