Protocols for field sampling of forest carbon pools for Monitoring, Reporting and Verification Of REDD

Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) of forest carbon (C) stocks, changes in these stocks (ΔC) due to land use and land use change and net greenhouse gas emissions are critical technical challenges of climate change mitigation initiatives aiming to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD). MRV systems for emission reporting for voluntary carbon agreements and REDD will require the careful integration of remotely sensed (RS) data and ground measurements for the retrieval of C and ΔC with sufficient precision and accuracy to be marketable and tradable. MRV systems will also need to be designed specific to scale; from project level monitoring for voluntary carbon agreements to national level REDD reporting. Field sampling will be an expensive component of MRV systems and efficiency and cost effectiveness are paramount. Here we present protocols that can guide the design of field measurement campaigns for estimating C and ΔC for MRV systems in developing tropical countries. We will use examples from Papua New Guinea (PNG).