This presentation, delivered at the International Workshop on Forest Carbon Emissions in Jakarta, examines the need to improve national forest monitoring approaches. CIFOR's Global Comparative Study and the importance of definition are discussed in the context of Indonesia.

1. Towards the Improvement of National
Forest Monitoring Approaches
International Workshop on Forest Carbon Emissions
Technical Session 3: State of the Art Technology for Carbon Stock
Assessment and Monitoring
Jakarta, 3 – 5 March 2015
Arief Wijaya
Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Indonesia
Contributors: Ruandha Agung Sugardiman, Budiharto, Anna Tosiani, Judin
Purwanto, Lou Verchot, Daniel Murdiyarso, Erika Romijn and Martin Herold

2. CIFOR Global Comparative Study on REDD+
 GCS Module 3: REDD+ MRV and Carbon Emissions
measurement
– Assessment of major deforestation drivers
– Setting national reference emission levels (RELs)
– Monitoring, reporting, verification (MRV) for REDD+
– Six case study countries: Brazil, Peru, Indonesia,
Vietnam, Tanzania and Cameroon
 Further information: www.cifor.org/gcs/

3. Opportunity/Challenges of National Forest
Monitoring
 Estimation of future carbon emissions from LULUCF sector
is yet challenging for many developing countries, including
in Indonesia
 Opportunity: Indonesia has several spatially explicit
deforestation maps/estimates
 Objective of the talk: to share our approach to assess and
improve the reliability of national deforestation estimate

4. Approaches for estimating area change in
land use (activity data) – IPCC 2006
 Approach 1: total area for each land use category recorded,
but no information included on conversions (only net
changes)
 Approach 2: tracking of conversions between land use
categories (only between 2 points in time)
 Approach 3: spatially explicit tracking of land use
conversions over time.

5. Materials
 Land cover map of MOF (1990-2012)
 Annual deforestation map of University of Maryland – both from
Hansen and Margono (2000-2012)
 Land cover change map of CRISP (2000-2010)
 Stratified sample of land cover change map of EU Joint Research
Centre (2000-2010)

6. Land Cover Classification System
Landuse/cover classification of Indonesia for the years 1990, 1996, 2000, 2003, 2006,
2009, 2011, 2012 and 2013.
Data source: LANDSAT satellite data (30 m resolution) (MOF, 2014)
No Classification
1 Primary Upland Forest
2 Secondary Upland Forest/Logged Forest
3 Primary Swamp Forest
4 Secondary Swamp Forest/Logged Area
5 Primary Mangrove Forest
6 Secondary Mangrove Forest/Logged
7 Crop Forest
8 Oil Palm and Estate Crops
9 Bushes/Shrubland
10 Swampy Bush
11 Savanna
12 Upland Farming
No Classification
13 Upland Farming Mixed with
Bush
14 Rice field
15 Cultured Fisheries/Fishpond
16 Settlement/Developed Land
17 Transmigration
18 Open Land
19 Mining/mines
20 Water Body
21 Swamp
22 Cloud
23 Airport/Harbor

7. Forest definitions
Source: Romijn, et.al, (2013)

8. Statistics of deforestation and forest
degradation
Source: Romijn, et.al, (2013)

9. Forest definitions matter!
Distribution of deforestation drivers in Indonesia from 2000 to 2009 based on analysis
of follow-up land cover/land use type

10. Land Use Types Following Forest Conversion
1990-2000
What about drivers of forest degradation?

11. Comparison of Deforestation Estimates – Needs
for Systematic Assessment?

12. Semi-automatic classification and visual
observation? Or different forest definitions?

13. Deforestation Data and Forest Definitions
Source Resolution
MMU
Forest definition
MOFOR
Official
(Landsat)
6.25 ha Vegetation with canopy cover of more than 30% with minimum area
of 0.25 ha and tree height above 5 meter. Plantation forests (e.g.
Acacia, Eucalyptus, Teak, etc.) can be considered as a forest
MOFOR
FAO
6.25 ha Forest is defined by the FAO as land spanning more than 0.5 ha with
more than 10% tree canopy cover and trees higher than 5 m (or
having the potential to reach a height of 5 m).
CRISP
(MODIS)
25 ha Not defined
Hansen
(Landsat)
0.09 ha
0.36 ha
Forest cover was defined as areas with canopy cover >25 and change
was measured disregards to forest land use. All tree cover
assemblages that met the 25% threshold, including intact forests,
plantations, and forest regrowth, were defined as forests.
EU-JRC
(Landsat)
5 ha More than 5 m height, forest prop. In polygon (FP)>70, canopy cover
(CC)>10

14. CO2 Emissions from Deforestation, Peat
Drainage and Peat Fires in Indonesia

15. Contributions of CO2 Emissions by Islands

16. Four Decades of Forests
Persistence, clearance and
logging in Borneo
(1973-2010)
Source: Gaveau, et.al (2014)
76% of forest cover (1973) 46% of forest cover (2010)
http://gislab.cifor.cgiar.org/wm/borneo/
Extend period of
observation

17. CIFOR Study
(Subset of Borneo-wide Data 1973 – 2010)
Class labels Area (Mha)
Intact Forest 2010 4.12
Logged Forest 2010 4.04
Deforestation from 1973 to 2010 3.86
Non-Forest 1973 2.97
Clouds 0.26
Total 15.24
Courtesy: David Gaveau (CIFOR)
Detailed analysis at sub-national

18. Lesson learnt from CIFOR Global Comparative
Study on REDD+
 Countries should start as soon as possible to monitor their
forestlands and forest cover change using the best available
data
– If we have less data the more we depend on the data
 Countries should invest for collecting national datasets (i.e.
time series forest cover change and local emissions factor
data)
 Follows international convention (such as IPCC guidelines)
for estimating deforestation and forest degradation
– How to differentiate between net and gross estimates
– Include natural forest recovery and forest rehabilitation efforts

19. Observations so far…
 Recommendations for further research to support policy
makers:
– Systematic assessment of national land cover map – comparison of
different maps, uncertainty of visual vis-à-vis semi-automatic
classification approaches
– Further analysis to address drivers of deforestation
– Extend observation period of land cover map (e.g. back to 1980)
– Include forest degradation and its associated emissions in the equation

21.  Research and systematic observation (RSO) for forest-peat
carbon
 To come up with position draft to feed COP 21 Paris –
relates to SDG – objectives 13-15
 Which science are still required to support policy makers in
mitigating climate change?