Forest Gain Research Articles

Divergent rates of change between tree cover types in a tropical pastoral region

Context Forest cover change analyses have revealed net forest gain in many tropical regions. While most analyses have focused solely on forest cover, trees outside forests are vital components of landscape integrity. Quantifying regional-scale patterns of tree cover change, including non-forest trees, could benefit forest and landscape restoration (FLR) efforts.

Tree cover response to climate change in the forest-tundra of north-central Canada: fire-driven decline, not northward advance

ABSTRACTClimate-vegetation models predict rapid northward advance of the subarctic forest-tundra in the coming century, although modelled responses may not be congruent with field data. This study aimed to determine how forest-tundra vegetation has responded to climate change in north-central Canada. Vegetation cover and gradients were mapped and compared to changes in climate parameters between 1955 and 2006. Increased aridity and annual and July warming corresponded to spatial isotherm shifts of one-half the width of the forest-tundra transition. Over the 51-year period, the areal extent of live trees decreased 26% (5227 km2) while the areal extent of recently-burned trees increased 16-fold (7768 km2). Changes in the areal extent of treeless wetland, tall shrubs, and upland tundra were non-significant. There was significant forest loss in the southern forest-tundra and modest forest gain in the northern forest-tundra. Overall, forest loss outpaced forest gain. The forest-tundra increased in areal extent by ~6% via an overall broadening of the transition region. Contrary to model predictions, no appreciable northward migration of the forest-tundra was detected over the 51-year period despite significant climate change. Increased wildfire activity and moisture stress may limit the potential of tree vegetation to expand northward under a warming climate.

Changes in the landscape pattern of the La Mesa Watershed – The last ecological frontier of Metro Manila, Philippines

The La Mesa Watershed (LMW) is considered as the ‘lungs’ and the last ecological frontier of the Philippines’ National Capital Region, Metro Manila. It is among the many watersheds in the country that suffered from severe deforestation in the past. Nevertheless, over the past few decades, reforestation programs for the LMW have also been initiated. The spatiotemporal monitoring of landscape pattern (composition and configuration) is needed to inform policy and support forward-looking management planning toward landscape sustainability. However, the changes in the landscape pattern of the LMW, including the extent of forest cover loss and gain over the past decades, have not been quantified; hence, this study. We used remote sensing data (Landsat) to classify the land use/land cover of the LMW in 1988, 2002 and 2016. We subsequently used spatial metrics to quantify the changes in the landscape pattern of the watershed. We found that between 1988 and 2002, a period that largely preceded the start of the LMW’s major rehabilitation (c. 1999), the watershed had a net forest cover loss of 259 ha. From 2002 to 2016, it had a net forest cover gain of 557 ha. The detected increase in forest cover was supported by the percent tree cover change analysis results based on MODIS data. The deforestation of the LMW resulted in landscape fragmentation as indicated by the decrease in the area of forest and mean forest patch size, and the increase in forest patch density, etc. Forest restoration activities have helped improve the watershed’s landscape connectivity as signified by the increase in the area of forest and mean forest patch size, and the decrease in forest patch density, etc. The results also revealed that rapid urbanization has been a major factor driving landscape changes around the LMW, and this requires proactive, forward-looking management planning. Overall, the LMW’s case presents some valuable learning experience and insights regarding public-private partnerships toward watershed and forest-related rehabilitation initiatives. On a national scale, the Philippine government has embarked on a massive national greening program. The findings of this study suggest that such efforts could lead to the enhancement of denuded forest areas, if done properly.

Climate change and permafrost thaw-induced boreal forest loss in northwestern Canada

Permafrost distribution throughout the western Canadian subarctic is not well understood due to the remoteness and size of the region, its spatial and temporal heterogeneity, limited data availability, and sparse monitoring networks. These factors severely challenge investigations of how climate warming might affect the distribution of permafrost and provide strong justification for new methods of evaluating permafrost extent using remote sensing platforms. This study quantifies forest loss at ten subarctic boreal sites in the southern Northwest Territories and northeastern British Columbia between 1970 and 2010. Historical air photos and optical remote sensing images were assessed using a change detection approach over the ten sites, each 10 km2 spanning a north/south transect of 200 km. This study is the first to apply change detection methods to a large-scale gradient and spans the southern margin of discontinuous permafrost where results demonstrate variable patterns of net forest loss at each site ranged from 6.9% to 11.6% over the 40 year study period. Here we show that these differential rates of landcover change can be explained in part through climatic and environmental factors that vary latitudinally across the selected sites. Change statistics—net change, forest gain and forest loss were significantly correlated with an assortment of factors that varied across the ten-site transect.

Recent trends of forest cover change and ecosystem services in eastern upland region of Bangladesh

Forest cover changes have diverse outcomes for the livelihoods of rural people across the developing world. However, these outcomes are poorly characterized across varying landscapes. This study examined forest cover changes, associated drivers, and impacts on ecosystem services supporting livelihoods in three distinct areas (i.e. remote, intermediate and on-road) in the Chittagong Hill Tracts region of Bangladesh. The three zones had features of decreasing distance to major roads, decreasing levels of forest cover, and increasing levels of agricultural change. Data was collected from satellite images for 1989–2014, structured household interviews, and group discussions using Participatory Rural Appraisal approaches with local communities to integrate and contrast local people's perceptions of forest cover and ecosystem service change with commonly used methods for mapping forest dynamics. Satellite image analysis showed a net gain of forest areas from 1989 to 2003 followed by a net loss from 2003 to 2014. The gain was slightly higher in intermediate (1.68%) and on-road (1.33%) zones than in the remote (0.5%) zone. By contrast, almost 90% of households perceived severe forest loss and 75% of respondents observed concomitant declines in the availability of fuel wood, construction materials, wild foods, and fresh water. People also reported traveling further from the household to harvest forest products. The main drivers of forest loss identified included increased harvesting of timber and fuel wood over time in the intermediate and on-road zones, whereas swidden farming persisted as the major driver of change over time in the remote zone. The contrast between remotely-sensed forest gains and household-perceived forest loss shows community experiences may be a critical addition to satellite imagery analysis by revealing the livelihood outcomes linked to patterns of forest loss and gain. Community experiences may also evoke solutions by characterizing local drivers of forest change. Failing to disaggregate the impacts of forest loss and gains on ecosystems services over time may lead to uninformed management and further negative consequences for human well-being.

An upside to globalization: International outmigration drives reforestation in Nepal

Abstract Halting and reversing global forest loss is a key priority for sustainable development pathways. Multiple countries in the Global South have recently transitioned from net forest loss to net forest gain. Understanding and explaining reforestation patterns is necessary to better understand land cover dynamics and create more effective sustainability policies. We show that international migration – a key feature of globalization in the 21st century – spurs a transition to greater forest cover in Nepal. Although some aspects of globalization - agricultural commodity production and trade in particular - have been identified as contributing to deforestation, the effects of international migration are less well understood. Using data from Nepal’s national census (1.36 Million households) and from high-resolution forest cover change, we find that international outmigration is associated with substantial increases in local forest cover, even after controlling for multiple confounding factors. We find that areas with international outmigration levels above the median in 2001 were 44% more likely to experience net reforestation between 2000–2012. This effect of outmigration is mediated by changes in population density and in household agricultural activity. Effects of outmigration are higher in more agriculturally suitable areas, suggesting that migration-driven forest transitions are influenced by agricultural production systems. We provide new empirical evidence of forest transition driven by international migration and a generalizable analytical approach to the study of forest transitions using secondary global and national datasets. Our results suggest that actions to reach global sustainability, biodiversity targets, and reduced emissions can be better designed and targeted by taking into account the effects of international migration on natural resources and ecosystems.

Reforestation dynamics after land abandonment: a trajectory analysis in Mediterranean mountain landscapes

Reforestation after land abandonment across Mediterranean mountains, together with the related landscape pattern dynamics and its possible impacts on the natural flora and fauna are issues that need further research efforts. This research, based on multi-temporal land cover maps derived from remotely sensed data (1987, 2003, 2016) of the Central Apennines, sets out to (i) quantify land cover changes and (ii) explore forest re-growth accounting for the interdependencies between forest gain and spatial configuration through trajectory analyses. Landscape change was assessed by transition matrix. Forest composition and configuration over time were analyzed by trajectory analysis based on random sampling techniques. This approach, implemented here for the first time for analyzing forest re-growth, allows us to explore the relationship between forest gain (the percentage of landscape covered by forests) and changes in spatial pattern (patch density, edge density, and mean patch area). An increase in forest cover over the past 30 years underlined the intense process of natural re-colonization, which started after World War II, at the expense of the typical heterogeneity of Mediterranean cultural landscapes. The change in the spatial pattern of forested areas highlighted a significant transformation which is related to two processes: the centrifugal development of existing patches and the establishment of new nuclei. The trajectory analysis highlighted non-linear relationships between forest gain and spatial pattern, offering the basis envisage of their effects on biodiversity. Conservation-oriented management of Mediterranean mountain forests must acknowledge both the role of natural succession in generating complex mosaics and the importance of maintaining forest patches of different dimensions and configuration.

Assessing forest cover change in Mexico from annual MODIS VCF data (2000–2010)

ABSTRACTWe applied annual Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) product Vegetation Continuous Fields (VCF) data for the detection of forest cover change (FCC) in Mexico over the period 2000–2010. We excluded the pixels with uncertain information and applied a moving average and low-pass filter to smooth the multi-temporal data to reduce the fluctuations in the forest cover for each pixel. We applied a linear regression model and created two scenarios based on the coefficient of determination and slope to determine whether a pixel had changed its land cover over the study period. This model was able to label detected changes as deforestation, degradation, reforestation, and regrowth, based on the initial and final values of forest cover. The results showed that there has been more forest gain (reforestation and regrowth) than forest loss (deforestation and degradation) during the study period. We verified these results by comparing with the biomass data derived from the Mexican National Forest and Soil Inventory (Inventario Nacional Forestal y de Suelos, abbreviated to INFyS). Our model provides an efficient method to assess FCC at national level, which can contribute to the development of a reference level of greenhouse gas emission as necessary for the implementation of the international policy for reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+).

Impact of land-use zoning for forest protection and production on forest cover changes in Bhutan

Bhutan is characterized by a landscape dominated by forests. A substantial share of these forests is dedicated to nature conservation, with an extensive protected area network connected by biological corridors. Forestlands are also partly allocated to timber production, including forest management units subjected to strict regulations. We assessed the effectiveness of these various land-use zoning units to protect forest cover. We used a matching procedure to control for covariates and obtain robust estimates of the impact of each type of unit on forest cover changes during the 2000s. We also investigated subsets of the protected area network to test for effectiveness heterogeneities within this network. Our results showed that protected areas prevented 63% of the forest loss expected in forestlands under this protection status. These units also curtailed forest gain. Long-established protected areas were more effective at avoiding forest loss than recent ones, while the levels of stringency and operationality of protected areas had no differentiable impact on forest loss. We detected more forest loss in forests surrounding protected areas compared to more distant forestlands, showing a leakage effect. Biological corridors had no impact on forest loss and gain. Forest management units decreased forest loss by half. After accounting for the selection bias, this study demonstrated the effectiveness of land use zoning for forest conservation in Bhutan.

Factors affecting forest area change in Southeast Asia during 1980-2010.

While many tropical countries are experiencing rapid deforestation, some have experienced forest transition (FT) from net deforestation to net reforestation. Numerous studies have identified causative factors of FT, among which forest scarcity has been considered as a prerequisite for FT. In fact, in SE Asia, the Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam, which experienced FT since 1990, exhibited a lower remaining forest area (30±8%) than the other five countries (68±6%, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, and Myanmar) where forest loss continues. In this study, we examined 1) the factors associated with forest scarcity, 2) the proximate and/or underlying factors that have driven forest area change, and 3) whether causative factors changed across FT phases (from deforestation to net forest gain) during 1980–2010 in the eight SE Asian countries. We used production of wood, food, and export-oriented food commodities as proximate causes and demographic, social, economic and environmental factors, as well as land-use efficiency, and wood and food trade as underlying causes that affect forest area change. Remaining forest area in 1990 was negatively correlated with population density and potential land area of lowland forests, while positively correlated with per capita wood production. This implies that countries rich in accessible and productive forests, and higher population pressures are the ones that have experienced forest scarcity, and eventually FT. Food production and agricultural input were negatively and positively correlated, respectively, with forest area change during 1980–2009. This indicates that more food production drives deforestation, but higher efficiency of agriculture is correlated with forest gain. We also found a U-shaped response of forest area change to social openness, suggesting that forest gain can be achieved in both open and closed countries, but deforestation might be accelerated in countries undergoing societal transition. These results indicate the importance of environmental, agricultural and social variables on forest area dynamics, and have important implications for predicting future tropical forest change.

Spatial patterns in the global distributions of savanna and forest

AbstractAimThe global distribution of biomes is not solely determined by climate. Top‐down processes, most notably fire, may substantially expand savannas into potentially forested areas. Here, we address an overlooked aspect of the existing literature: spatial patterns in savanna and forest distributions and the transitions between them, and whether current transitions could plausibly reproduce current distributions.LocationTropical Africa and South America.Time period2000–2012.Major taxa studiedBiomes.MethodsUsing remotely sensed tree cover and rainfall, we examined the distributions of savanna and forest and of transitions between the two. We examined forest gain directly, but because forest loss mostly reflects direct anthropogenic deforestation, we instead examined the proportion of forests experiencing one or more fires as an indirect proxy for potential conversion of forest into savanna. The effects of biome transitions on biome movements and distributions at continental scale were evaluated using a cellular automata model via simulation using observed decadal rates of transitions.ResultsAlthough open‐ and closed‐canopy systems were both common at intermediate rainfall, they were strongly spatially segregated. So too were forest fires, which occurred mostly near their boundary with savannas, while forest encroachment of savanna was widespread. Simulations showed that observed transitions could not have produced current biome distributions.Main conclusionsBiome distributions in the tropics are not exclusively determined by climate (especially at intermediate rainfall), but are nonetheless strongly spatially structured. Current transitions between savanna and forest could not have reproduced their current distributions, suggesting that, historically, the spatial structure of transitions was probably different than it is today. While forest sub‐canopy fires are still spatially structured, forest encroachment of savannas may be much more widespread than it was in the past.

The influence of groundwater and land cover change on evapotranspiration in the Amazon Rainforest transition zone

The Amazon rainforest's moisture recycling system provides water for rainfed agriculture, hydroelectric power generation and human consumption, and is, therefore, an important ecosystem service which is hugely important for the Brazilian economy. However, forest conversion to agriculture in the Amazon severally reduces the evapotranspiration (ET) flux, especially over varying groundwater levels. During the dry season, when precipitation is limiting, access to groundwater can help maintain ET rates. This strongly depends on the rooting depth of vegetation and groundwater depth. These effects on ET may lead to lowering atmospheric moisture, and in turn, less moisture available for downstream precipitation. Understanding how land cover changes impact the moisture recycling systems could significantly influence future decision making. The aim of this research is to improve our understanding of the influence of groundwater depth, land use change and their interaction with ET of forest and agricultural land cover. We used one of the most commonly utilised remote sensing data products from MODIS (MOD16 - 8-day ET at 500m resolution) to investigate the temporal and spatial patterns of land cover change and evapotranspiration in the Amazon region from 2002 to 2017. First, we investigated groundwater's influence on the seasonality of ET under stable conditions, i.e., over areas that did not undergo land cover change during the study period. We found differences in seasonality as well as differences between deep and shallow groundwater for agricultural land cover types - Rangeland and Cropland. Secondly, we examined periods of land-use transitions where forest has been converted to agriculture in order to investigate the effect of transition on ET. The loss of ET following land cover change was clear although the time until the new land cover's ET reflected that of a stable land cover was highly variable. Lastly, areas of forest gain were examined to assess ET of secondary forest and the length of time until recovery of this ecosystem service. This analysis showed that secondary forests take several years until ET reaches stable values but it does return to values within the range of those for primary forest. These results suggest that groundwater and land use changes interact in their effect on ET especially in the seasonality and the time to recover.

Trading Natural Riparian Forests for Urban Shelterbelt Plantations—A Sustainability Assessment of the Kökyar Protection Forest in NW China

Cities at the fringe of the Taklimakan desert in NW China are prone to dust and sand storms with serious consequences for human well-being. The Kökyar Protection Forest was established in the 1980s as an ecological engineering project with the intent of protecting the city of Aksu, NW China, from these impacts. It is designed as a combination of poplar shelterbelts and orchards, irrigated by river water from the Aksu River, the main tributary of the Tarim River. Prevalent literature describes it as an afforestation project for combatting desertification with manifold positive effects for the economic, social, and environmental dimension of sustainable development. This paper sets out to challenge these claims by a sustainability assessment in which the plantation is examined from a broader perspective, embedding it to the wider context of social and environmental problems in South Xinjiang. Methods comprise evapotranspiration calculations, interviews, a socioeconomic household survey, stakeholder dialogues, and literature research. Results affirm its economic sustainability, but see a mixed record for the social sphere. From the nature conservation point of view, it has to be classified as unsustainable because its high irrigation water consumption results in the downstream desiccation and desertification of natural riparian forests along the Tarim River, causing a forest loss in the downstream area twice the size of the forest gain in the upstream area. There is a trade-off between artificial shelterbelt plantations for urban ecosystem services on the one hand side, and natural riparian forests and their biodiversity on the other hand side. The paper recommends restricting agricultural extension, and using locally adapted less water consuming agroforestry schemes to protect urban dwellers from dust stress.

Mapping Forest and Their Spatial–Temporal Changes From 2007 to 2015 in Tropical Hainan Island by Integrating ALOS/ALOS-2 L-Band SAR and Landsat Optical Images

Accurately monitoring forest dynamics in the tropical regions is essential for ecological studies and forest management. In this study, images from phase-array L-band synthetic aperture radar (PALSAR), PALSAR-2, and Landsat in 2006–2010 and 2015 were combined to identify tropical forest dynamics on Hainan Island, China. Annual forest maps were first mapped from PALSAR and PALSAR-2 images using structural metrics. Those pixels with a high biomass of sugarcane or banana, which are widely distributed in the tropics and subtropics and have similar structural metrics as forests, were excluded from the SAR-based forest maps by using phenological metrics from time series Landsat imagery. The optical–SAR-based forest maps in 2010 and 2015 had high overall accuracies (OA) of 92–97% when validated with ground reference data. The resultant forest map in 2010 shows good spatial agreement with public optical-based forest maps (OA = 88–90%), and the annual forest maps (2007–2010) were spatiotemporally consistent and more accurate than the PALSAR-based forest map from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (OA = 82% in 2010). The areas of forest gain, loss, and net change on Hainan Island from 2007 to 2015 were 415 000 ha (+2.17% yr–1), 179 000 ha (–0.94% yr –1), and 236 000 ha (+1.23% yr–1), respectively. About 95% of forest gain and loss occurred in those areas with an elevation less than 400 m, where deciduous rubber, eucalyptus plantations, and urbanization expanded rapidly. This study demonstrates the potential of PALSAR/PALSAR-2/Landsat image fusion for monitoring annual forest dynamics in the tropical regions.

В. Аналіз точності глобальних карт зімкнутості деревостанів для території рівнинної частини України

В. Аналіз точності глобальних карт зімкнутості деревостанів для території рівнинної частини України

Assessment of the land surface temperature dynamics in the city of Sofia using Landsat satellite data

The paper presents the results of forest cover change mapping in two study areas in Bulgaria (in mountainous and plain-hilly terrain) for period of about 20 years. A comparison was made of two approaches for classification of multitemporal SPOT HRV/HRVIR data with 20 m spatial resolution. The first approach was the post-classification comparison, i.e. pixel-by-pixel comparison of forest/non forest maps produced by separate classifications of the images from the two ends of the time period. The second approach was a direct multitemporal classification of an image stack comprised of the two-date image data. Following international guidance, instead of counting pixels in the map to obtain the area of forest loss and gain, the areas were estimated by applying an unbiased estimator to sample data collected by stratified random sampling. The map was used to stratify the study areas. Producer’s, user’s and overall accuracy were also estimated using the sample data. A comparison of accuracy and area estimates, and confidence intervals of estimates, showed that the map produced by direct multitemporal classification was more accurate. It yielded consistently higher class-specific accuracies than the map made by post-classification comparison. As expected, the accuracies of the change classes – forest disturbance and reforestation – were significantly lower than that of the stable classes regardless of the change detection approach. Finally, practical issues and guidelines for future forest change detection studies were discussed.

Missing forest cover gains in boreal forests explained

AbstractA recent global study reported a net difference between areas of forest cover loss and of forest cover gain of about 3.6% of total forest area across the boreal biome, and of 5.6% for Canada, over a 12‐yr period. Net losses of this magnitude should be of concern given the importance of this biome in global biogeochemical cycles linked to climate change. Our analysis for Canada fails to support these results and suggests that post‐harvest recovery of tree cover is generally strong, while post‐fire recovery of tree cover is weaker but nevertheless prevalent. We find that current large area remote sensing methodologies can fail to properly recognize post‐disturbance recovery from non‐forest to forest status in low‐productivity boreal forests when using short time series. With climate change and human impacts intensifying around the world, it is urgently important to be able to reliably distinguish temporary forest cover loss followed by naturally slow recovery from forest decline requiring policy action. The analysis was in large part based on the new Canada Landsat Disturbance product in which fires and harvest since 1984 are mapped at 30‐m resolution (https://doi.org/10.23687/add1346b-f632-4eb9-a83d-a662b38655ad).

Strategien zur Minimierung von Opportunitätskosten der Totholzbereitstellung

Strategies aimed to minimize opportunity costs regarding the provision of deadwood Besides the conventional use of wood for construction and heating, further ecosystem services of forests gain more and more importance, such as environmental protection and social welfare. Due to its long-term production, forest management is faced with additional biophysical and economic risks when providing these services. This article assesses how ecosystem services can be included in an economic planning model using as an example the provision of deadwood in commercial forests. For a private forest enterprise in Bavaria (Germany), different deadwood targets were combined with different grading variants and included in the optimization approach as side conditions. By comparing the different optimal solutions for different deadwood targets it was possible to derive the costs of an optimal strategy. The results indicate that costs widely vary not only depending on the amount, but also on the grading types of deadwood (entire tree, strong timber, branches), the tree species (softwood, hardwood), and the given time horizon to reach the deadwood target. As a conclusion for practitioners we derive that ecological and economic objectives can be combined in an optimal way by the examined enterprise if deadwood is provided from whole hardwood trees and if the goal does not have to be reached in a short time.

Land use and land cover change in Inner Mongolia - understanding the effects of China's re-vegetation programs

During the past decades, overuse of land resources has increasingly contributed to environmental crises in China. To mitigate wide-spread land degradation, actions have been taken to maintain and restore ecologically valuable landscapes such as natural forests. However, the effects of the various vegetation protection policies that have been implemented in China since the late 1990′s still remain largely unknown. In this paper, we therefore focus on mapping land use and land cover change (LULCC) in Inner Mongolia, one of the key regions targeted by Chinese ecological restoration programs. We used 250-m MODIS time series and a random forest classification approach to generate annual probabilities for each land cover class between 2000 and 2014. We then applied a trajectory-based change detection approach based on a modified version of the Landsat-based detection of trends in disturbance and recovery (LandTrendr) algorithm to the probability time series and mapped land cover change trajectories. We found that our trajectory-based approach achieved high accuracies (overall accuracy 0.95±0.02). It provides spatial-temporal land change maps that allow a land-use related interpretation of change patterns. Our change maps show that i) forest loss decreased rapidly after 2000 (from 15,717±1770ha in 2001 to 1313±165ha in 2014) and forest gain (190,645±28,352ha during 2001–2014) occurred in the ecological program zones, leading to a net forest increase in Inner Mongolia, and ii) cropland retirement (212,979±54,939ha during 2001–2014) mostly occurred at the early stage of ecological programs and mainly concentrated in drier environments and steep terrain. Overall, land cover mapping and trajectory-based land use analyses allowed a consistent characterization of LULCC over large areas, which is crucial for gaining a better understanding of environmental changes in the light of rapidly changing environmental policies and governance regimes in China.

From REDD+ MRV Perspective: Comparison of Two Different Forest Management Regimes Using Geospatial Techniques in Ludi Khola Watershed, Gorkha District, Nepal

This study presents a practical example of using remote sensing data and methods for forest management in Ludi Khola watershed (5750 ha) Gorkha District, a REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) pilot project site in Nepal. The study area consists of 1888 ha that are assigned to 31 community forests (CFs) and 3862 ha that belong to non-community forests such as governmental and private forests (Non-CFs). By using high-resolution GeoEye-1 (2009 and 2012) satellite images and forest inventory data, temporal dynamics of land cover transitions, tree canopy size classes (crown projection area), Above-Ground Biomass (AGB) were estimated and compared for the two forest regimes (CFs and Non-CFs). Geographic Object-Based Image Analysis (GEOBIA) segmentation and classification techniques were performed. By using the change matrix method, forest area conversion to non-forest (forest loss) of only 1 ha (0.05%) in CF and 27 ha (0.7%) in Non-CF was observed over 2009–2012. On the other hand, change from non-forest to forest (forest gain) occurred on 12 ha (0.6%) in CF and 60 ha (1.5%) in Non-CF. According to land cover information from 2009 to 2012, closed broadleaved forest concealed almost 87% of total CFs’ forest area and 59% of total Non-CFs’ forest area, while open broadleaved forest occupied almost 12 and 20% in CFs and Non-CFs, respectively. The community-based inventory revealed an annual increment of 3.7 t/ha AGB, whereas remote sensing-based modelling estimated 4.5 t/ha AGB. The integration of remote sensing and field data can demonstrate and endorse a much more efficient REDD+ Measurement, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) system in terms of information content, reliability, cost, transparency, verifiability, and scalability.