The world’s forests decreased at a rate of 8.3 million ha per year during 1990–2000. Although the annual net forest loss decreased to 4.8 million ha during 2000–2005, it rose again to 5.6 million ha during 2005–2010 (FAO 2010). During 2005–2010, the area of tropical forest decreased rapidly in several developing countries, including Brazil (2,194,000 ha annual loss), Indonesia (685,000 ha), and Nigeria (410,000 ha); in Australia, severe drought and forest fires have exacerbated the loss of forest since 2000 (FAO 2010). Brazil and Indonesia together accounted for 52% of the world’s net loss of forest...

Lombok is one of two main islands in the province of West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), sandwiched between Bali and the Lombok Strait in the west, and Sumbawa and the Alas Strait in the east (see Figure 2.1). Lombok’s topography is dominated by the Mount Rinjani volcanic complex, located in the north-central part of the island and rising to 3726 m, making it the second highest volcano in Indonesia, and the nation’s third highest mountain. Central Lombok is hilly, sloping to the relatively flat relief in the southern part of the island. The island is about 70 km across, with a...

Very little is known about access, use and community management of forests prior to the arrival of the Dutch. Much of the forests in Lombok were certainly under local management and subject to traditional or customary (adat) control. According to Kraan (2009), the forests surrounding Mount Rinjani and Segara Anak Lake were regarded as sacred by both Sasak and Balinese cultures. These forests were used primarily for religious rites and ceremonies, and a variety of cultural practices, including hunting, by the kings and local leaders who ruled the area during that time. Yudilastiantoro and Sulistyo (2008) report that 30 customary...

REDD+ financing is designed to provide incentives to protect forests for the value of their standing carbon. Thus, estimating verifiable carbon credits in a transparent way is essential for starting a conversation on any REDD+ proposal. For climate mitigation, simply reducing rates of deforestation and forest degradation is not enough; project proponents must demonstrate the amount of avoided emissions, based on the reference emission level (REL), which is the expected carbon emission rate from deforestation and forest degradation in the absence of interventions. The baseline for establishing RELs for REDD+ projects should include two components: land use and land-cover change...

Forest carbon estimation and monitoring for REDD+ projects must comply with international agreements and standards, in order to maintain consistency and precision in these measurements. UNFCCC requires that countries follow IPCC guidelines regarding land use and forest carbon stock changes in GHG emissions (IPCC, 2003, 2006), and recommends the use of remote sensing and ground-based forest carbon inventory approaches in combination to estimate forest carbon stock for REDD+ (UNFCCC 2009). The IPCC (2003, 2006) suggests that carbon stock changes should be calculated and reported for the main carbon pools in the forest ecosystem, i.e. living biomass of trees, dead mass...

As outlined in Chapters 4 and 5, we analyzed landuse and forest carbon stock changes to identify where and when forest areas in the KPHL RB became deforested. Significant deforestation (and decreasing forest carbon stocks) occurred between 1995 and 2000, but the rate of deforestation has generally decreased since 2000. The deforestation has been spatially identified as primarily along the frontier, or forest margins (see Figure 4.4). In this chapter, we describe the social and economic factors behind this observed deforestation in forest margin communities. Understanding the dynamics between socioeconomic factors and forest cover change is essential for projecting future...

There are several well-established international carbon standards used in voluntary carbon markets. These standards provide the basic methods and best practices to design robust REDD+ methodologies to establish a REL to ensure additionality, prevent leakage, and assess permanence and risk of the proposed activities (Estrada 2010). In the absence of a unifying international agreement on carbon accounting, following VCS guidelines may be the best available option for project-level REDD+ activities (Ashton et al. 2009). We have generally followed the latest VCS guidelines for estimating baseline carbon stock changes from unplanned frontier deforestation and forest degradation from unsustainable fuelwood collection.9

We...