Deforestation and degradation are estimated to contribute about 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. A group of developing countries initiated a process at the UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP-11) in 2005 to address the issue of reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD), that would be implemented as a post-Kyoto Protocol mechanism. Countries have been encouraged to develop REDD Pilot Projects to assess the feasibility of such a mechanism. Earth Observation in combination with in-situ data are important tools for forest cover and land use monitoring in the REDD process. The current proposal REDDAF aims to develop pre-operational forest monitoring services in two Congo Basin countries that are actively involved in the REDD process. The users in both Cameroon and Central African Republic require such services and will actively participate in project implementation. The main activities proposed are:
Stakeholder Analysis: country specific user requirements to identify the needs of stakeholders in terms of instituting REDD projects.
Carbon stock accounting: research and development of methods for improved EO/ in-situ data applications to estimate areal extent of deforestation and forest degradation as well as biomass per unit area. The historical changes in forest cover will be used to establish a reference baseline. Based on these research efforts pre-operational processing chains will be developed.
Technology Transfer/Capacity Building to the country: activities to ensure that project results, methodologies and lessons learned are provided in a manner to best support the work of national and regional counterparts.
The services and products that will be delivered to the user community include forest cover maps and forest cover change maps for 1990-2000 and 2000–2009/10 (land use changes based on six IPCC compliant land use classes); degradation maps, biomass maps and the relevant digital datasets.