Progress on incorporating biodiversity monitoring in REDD+ through national forest inventories

Loïc Gillerot,Rebecca Tavani,Fabio Attorre,Rocio Condor-Golec,Giorgio Grussu,Paul Dargush

doi:10.1016/j.gecco.2021.e01901

Abstract

There is a well-documented opportunity and need to incorporate biodiversity conservation priorities into REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) initiatives. This requires thorough monitoring of changes to biodiversity at appropriate temporal and spatial scales. A national forest inventory is one of the essential tools used to monitor carbon stock changes but can also be expanded to include biodiversity indicators. Here we analyse the progress and potential of 70 countries in monitoring primarily non-tree biodiversity using national forest inventories. Progress on national forest inventories among countries participating in REDD+ is variable: 11 countries have not started; 26 have started but do not include non-tree biodiversity indicators; the remaining 33 countries do include non-tree biodiversity indicators but use various methodological approaches, levels of detail and taxonomic groups. Very few of these provide comprehensive and accessible manuals or results, highlighting a need for greater transparency. The capacity of countries to fund ongoing national forest inventories is a constraining factor. Remote sensing technologies can help reduce costs for countries with limited monitoring capacity but the need to understand biodiversity variation at finer scales often limits the utility of such methods.

Highlights

REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, plus the sustainable management of forests, and the conservation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks) holds great potential to reverse the current trend of deforestation and forest degradation (FAO, 2016), which together account for around 12% of global anthropogenic emissions
The countries were limited to the participants of the two most prominent REDD+ programmes: the United Nations REDD+ programme (UN-REDD) and the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF)
There is substantial variation in overall REDD+ progress between participating countries (UNREDD, 2018). This is reflected in the diverging capacities for MRV (FAO, 2018b; Neeff and Piazza, 2019; Romijn et al, 2015), which national forest inventory (NFI) are an essential part of (Maniatis and Mollicone, 2010)

Summary

Introduction

Long-term carbon storage and biodiversity are at the same time mutually dependent (Hinsley et al, 2015; Parrotta et al, 2012), as the potential of forests for climate regulation depends on their intactness (Gardner et al, 2019; Lewis et al, 2019). REDD+ embodies potential risks for biodiversity (Huettner, 2012; Phelps et al, 2012), such as the incentive it could present to convert natural forests to monocultures of highly productive tree species (Dickson and Kapos, 2012; Parrotta et al, 2012; Pistorius et al, 2011) or by increasing land-use pressure on carbon-poor but highly biodiverse areas (Bayrak and Marafa, 2016). Protecting forest cover and carbon stock alone will not automatically insure species diversity (Beaudrot et al, 2016; Collins et al, 2011; Ferreira et al, 2018; Pandey et al, 2014; Paoli et al, 2010), as other anthropogenic threats such as wild resource overexploitation, biological in vasions and especially hunting can still affect the forest’s biodiversity and, indirectly, even carbon stocks themselves (Hinsley et al, 2015; Krause and Nielsen, 2019)

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Conclusion