2nd GOFC-GOLD Workshop on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation

The first GOFC-GOLD workshop, held 2006 in Jena, has provided a first consensus perspective from the earth observation community on scientific and methodological issues related to “reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries” (REDD), as currently discussed in the framework of the UNFCCC process.

The resulting short report presents a general vision of the earth observation community in assistance to this UNFCCC process. It was distributed at the 1st UNFCCC REDD ad-hoc workshop held in Rome in August 2006 and at SBSTA-25/COP-12.

The second GOFC-GOLD workshop on the REDD issue aimed to initiate the development of a more detailed technical-guidelines-type document with specific methodological recommendations based on the recent case study experiences.

Objectives:

• Coordinate recent and ongoing case studies on the REDD issue and discuss and synthesize their practical experiences
• Discuss specifically key challenging issues (i.e. degradation monitoring, forest area change versus emissions, validation and accuracy, costs)
• Organize the development of methodological guidelines towards a detailed technical protocol for measuring and monitoring including ‘reliability’ assessments
• Formulate technical and methodological recommendations for implementation at regional and national scales

The results of the workshop were presented during a special side event at SBSTA-26 in May 2007 in Bonn.
The Working Group has prepared a technical sourcebook that provides a technical guidelines for RED implementation. It was presented at COP 13 in November, in Bali/Inodesia.

For more information on the workshop and its outcomes:

The workshop was held in St. Cruz, Bolivia, hosted by FAN Bolivia (Fundacion Amigos de la Naturaleza) and supported by GOFC-GOLD, START and ESA.