This document summarizes lessons learned from Ecuador and Peru's efforts to establish REDD+ baselines and monitoring systems at the national and sub-national levels. It discusses some of the common challenges faced, such as developing institutional capacity, generating carbon stock and activity data, and meeting various international requirements. It also identifies opportunities to take a stepwise approach and test jurisdictional REDD+ methods to help align key players and adjust approaches over time based on experiences on the ground.

1. VCS-JNR:
Lessons learned and suggestions
Lucio Pedroni
Baselines and Monitoring:
Experience from Ecuador and Peru
Lucio Pedroni - lpedroni@carbondecisions.com
C A R B O N
D E C I S I O N S
I N T E R N A T I O N A L
South-South Jurisdictional and Nested
REDD+ (JNR) Exchange Workshop
Manaus (Brasil), 13-15 June, 2013®

2. A consulting firm specialized in the development
of forest carbon assets and forest management.
C A R B O N
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I N T E R N A T I O N A L®
ARR
IFM
REDD+
CDM
CCBS
VCS
JNR
Argentina
Brazil
Colombia
Costa Rica
Ecuador
Ghana
Guatemala
Guyana
Honduras
Indonesia
Madagascar
Mexico
Nicaragua
Peru
Senegal
Tanzania
Indonesia

3. EcuadorEcuador
• REL and MRV are being
developed at the national
level under the leadership
of the Ministry of
Environment (MAE).
• Envisioned national
approach to REDD+ is
similar to VCS-JNR
Scenario 3.
• National REDD+ program
started implementation in
2009 (with “Programa
Socio-Bosque”).
• Intention to apply
consistent national
methodologies for MRV
and REL.
• Interest in bilateral
agreements for
performance payments.

4. Ecuador
MRV:
• Activity data:
– Three national land cover maps (1990, 2000, 2008): 3
points in time, but 1990 is more than 10 years behind.
– Some areas with clouds and shadows
(“unknown areas” are not categorized as “forest” or
“no-forest” and are excluded form accounting).
– Scope: “deforestation” (REDD+).
– Plan to measure deforestation wall-to-wall every 2nd
year, starting in 2014.
• Carbon stocks:
– National inventory almost completed.

5. National Forest Evaluation:
plots measured in forest land

6. Paso 4. Creación de un Mapa de Densidades
de Carbono (MDC)
National Forest Evaluation:
plots measured in no-forest land

7. Ecuador
REL:
• A national methodology based on VCS–JNR (and
VM0015) has been developed and will be submitted
to independent review.
• Scope: only deforestation for the period 2009-2014.
More activities (degradation, enhancement) may be
included in the second period (2015-2020).
• Reference activity data for the period 2009-2014:
– Average area deforested between 2000–2008.
– Calculated separately for 14 AHDPs (“Areas of
Homogeneous Deforestation Processes”).

8. AHDPs
• Criteria:
- Agents and drivers;
- Land-use;
- Availability of
unused non-forest
land;
- Level of historical
deforestation.
• AHDPs are not
jurisdictions.
Pilot REL
developed
for AHDP-1

9. REL:
• Projected activity data adjusted according to VCS-JNR
requirements:
– Natural disturbances (> 1,000 ha, return frequency > 10
years).
– Large infrastructure projects (> 1,000 ha)
– Large-scale commercial projects (if > 10% of historical
deforestation projection is not spatially explicit).
• Unplanned deforestation and planned deforestation
(large infrastructure projects) is spatially projected
(30x30 m resolution) using a modeling tool (Dinamica
Ego).
• The national REL is disaggregated at the levels of
Canton, Province and AHD.
Ecuador

10. REL:
• Emission factors:
– Carbon stock of forests from field measurements (> 600
plots of the National Forest Evaluation).
– Carbon stocks of post-deforestation land uses: default
values from IPCC tables and (very soon) from field
measurements. Calculated as the area-weighted average of
land-uses established on areas deforested between 1990-
2000 (one average value per AHDP).
– Conservative adjustments of the estimated average carbon
stocks to account for uncertainty (according to VCS-JNR
requirements).
– Default carbon stock decrease functions according to VCS-
AFOLU (for carbon pools that are not emitted immediately).
– Default carbon stock increase functions according to
VM0015 (for post-deforestation land uses).
Ecuador

11. Peru
• RELs are being established
at the sub-national level:
- Madre de Dios (8.52 Mha)
- San Martin (5.16 Mha)
- Selva Central (10.36 Mha)
- Cusco (6.60 Mha)
• Peru will most likely adopt a
an approach similar to VCS-
JNR scenario 2.
• National government
currently working on
carbon stock map and
historical deforestation data.
• REDD+ initiatives are mostly
civil society lead initiatives.
• San Martin is probably the most
advanced sub-national JNR
initiative.

12. San Martin (Peru):
• Since 2010 proponents of
nested projects and the regional
government are working
together (MINAM observing) to
develop and register a REL (VCS-
JNR Scenario 1).
• REL now developed following
VCS-JNR (methodology similar to
the one described for Ecuador).
• Challenges:
- High % of “unknown areas”.
- Data (carbon stocks, activity
data) and methodologies still
not available at the national
level.
- National endorsement or
non-objection.

13. Common Challenges
(related to MRV and RELs)
1. Institutional capacities.
2. Slow decision-making at the political level.
3. Choosing a “VCS-JNR Scenario” (1, 2 or 3).
4. Defining and adopting MRV and REL methodologies.
5. Generation of new and/or use of existing information on
carbon stocks and activity data.
6. Complying with many international requirements (IPCC,
UNFCCC, bilateral and multilateral processes and
agreements, VCS-JNR, Safeguards).
7. Demands of the civil society and indigenous organizations.
8. Long-term adoption at the political and institutional levels.

14. Opportunities
(related to MRV and RELs)
1. Durban´s stepwise approach: start working with
existing data and methodologies, using conservative
approaches (instead of looking for the perfect data
and methodologies and delaying the process).
2. Testing VCS-JNR requirements and adjust the
jurisdictional plans and the VCS-JNR requirements as
needed.
3. Test VCS-JNR requirements in the context of bilateral
and multilateral initiatives in order to align key
international REDD+ players on methodological
approaches and basic rules for JNR.

15. 4. Contribute to the development of user-friendly
methodologies, protocols and tools.

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