More and more countries have established and institutionalized sustainable, long-term and multi-purpose information systems in the context of REDD+, such as National Forest Monitoring Systems (NFMS), to support well-informed national policy formulation and decision making at different levels, and to meet national and international reporting needs. Such systems today are based on strong remote sensing land mapping as well as on more comprehensive field data collection allowing addressing emerging forest management needs and challenges. The NFMSs also allow countries to address domestic information needs as well as acquire and produce the necessary data and estimates to participate in multilateral financial support such as REDD+ mechanism under the UN Framework Climate Change Convention, bilateral agreements, any other financial mechanism associated to those (i.e the Green Climate Fund, emerging land restauration mechanisms, etc), eventually also provide information to the monitoring of the sustainable development goals (SDGs).
Information systems and data collection as a basis for improving quality of estimates and reporting (recently labelled as MRV) are core elements for either defining contributions to mitigation of climate change or assessing the impacts of the actions taken by UNFCCC Parties. They continue to be in the core of the UNFCCC negotiations related to mitigation, and therefore continue to be a key issue on REDD+ negotiations and implementation of adopted REDD+ decisions.
Key questions addressed:
- Are information systems in the context of REDD+, namely NFMSs, used beyond the estimates of Carbon?
- How can data collected contribute to improving global estimates and information?
- How will information systems improve the actions on the ground?
- How can NFMS be made sustainable and cost-effective?