Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project activities have to meet a number of requirements to ensure that they truly support ‘development’ for the people living in the area, that they are ‘clean’ and that they follow proper procedures. Technically, eligibility of lands for the implementation of CDM project activities requires compliance with the international rules and national regulations and priorities. In the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, Land-use, Land-use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) activities under the CDM are limited to afforestation and reforestation. In this connection, the Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change...

Two kinds of spatial datasets were used as materials to determine eligible lands for A/R CDM project activities. The World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC 1996) originated the first dataset, which represents information on the tropical moist forest in Indonesia before 1990 using very broad vegetation type categories. The information was gathered from various sources including:

Three thematic maps (1:250,000) of land systems and land suitability, land use, and land status produced by the Regional Physical Planning Programme for Transmigration (RePPProT) project. The project was started in 1984 in association with the National Centre for Co-ordination of Surveys and Mapping (BAKOSURTANAL)....

In order to indicate the distribution of eligible land across the districts the forest fraction is defined as the ratio of ‘forested’ area to district area. Similarly, the rice paddy fraction is the ratio of rice field area to district area. The first task is to explore the (statistical) relationships among these data (Figure 7).

Population density clearly differentiates the islands. Java has the highest population density and Kalimantan the lowest, while those of Sumatra and Nusa Tenggara are intermediate. In an Indonesia-wide (at least for the islands included in the analysis) comparison population density has clear relationships (negative and...

The ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ selection processes produce eligible land for A/R CDM project activities with the embedded opportunity to meet the objective of sustainable development. At the same time local governments and hosts could anticipate potential project risks for the carbon assets to leak. The terms ‘eligible’ and ‘ineligible’ to label each district should be interpreted in association with the potential threatening factors.

The further discussion is based on a data set of ‘potentially eligible’ areas, which were identified as meeting the requirement of having been deforested before 1990, called ‘Kyoto lands’, and where at least 500 ha of such...

Obviously, other criteria will have to be added to reflect the level of preparedness and interest of local community and district government, as well as the actual land uses on ‘Kyoto eligible’ lands.

The current analysis at district (kabupaten) level was based on coarse data useful for getting the idea in the broad context (national level). More-detailed analyses with finer data sets, for example on the subdistrict (kecamatan) level, are needed, however, for better identification of land parcels eligible for CDM projects, biophysical as well as socio-economic conditions to be considered and the various risks to be anticipated.

Once detailed...