This presentation, given by Margaret Skutsch of UNAM and Univerity of Twente, was a part of a COP20 side-event titled, ¨REDD+ monitoring needs to support the distribution of MRV and benefit sharing¨ in Lima, Peru, December 1, 2014. The side-event discussed evolving needs for monitoring to address national needs related to REDD+ implementation and benefit sharing.

1. The special issue of Forests
¨The potential role for community
monitoring in MRV and benefit
sharing for REDD+¨
Presented at the CoP20 Side Event:
¨REDD+ monitoring needs to support the
distribution of MRV and benefit sharing¨
Lima, Peru, December 1 2014

2. What do we still need to know about community
monitoring for REDD+?
• At the Warsaw CoP19, the discussion at the side
event on community monitoring suggested that:
– Community monitoring is feasible, can be as accurate
as professional forest surveys, and cheaper
– New technology can support this
– It could motivate better management
– It might be used as the basis of benefit distribution in
REDD+
– It could link into and support national MRV systems,
but more study would be needed on this

3. • The aim of the Special Issue was to discuss and
explore social, technical and political implications
and the potential for including CB monitoring in
national MRV and benefit sharing systems
• 7 articles are already posted on the website,
including one case study (Nepal)
• 2 are in final editing stage, including a second
case study (Guyana)
• The editorial will be partly based on the results of
this side event and the survey monkey

4. Contents of Special Issue
• Editorial (Skutsch and Balderas Torres)
• Balderas Torres: Potential for integrating community based monitoring into REDD+
• Pratihaast et al Combining satellite data and community-based observations for forest
monitoring
• Brofeldt et al: Community monitoring of carbon stocks for REDD+: does accuracy and
cost change over time?
• Balderas Torres et al: Integrating CBM into land-use based mitigation actions
implemented by local communities
• Paneque-Galvez et al: Small drones for community based forest monitoring: an
assessment of their feasibility and potential in tropical areas
• Skutsch et al: Options for a national framework for benefit distribution and their relation to
community based and national REDD+ monitoring
• Boissière et al: Participation in REDD+ MRV (PMRV): opportunities for local people?
• Shrestra et al: Case Study report: REDD+ pilot rojet in community forests in 3 watersheds
of Nepal
• Bellfield et al: Case Study report: Community based monitoring systems for REDD: a
casestudy from Guyana

5. What do these papers say?
 Balderas Torres in the introductory article
suggests that there are 4 potential roles of
community monitoring
• Increasing the sample size of carbon plots,
supplementing the set from national inventires
• Providing carbon data particularly on areas where
there have been public interventions/programmes for
improved management
• Providing carbon data on independent projects which
are selling credits in the voluntary market
• Providing non-carbon data on compliance with
safeguards

6.  Monitoring is not only about quantifying carbon
stock changes. Prastihaast et al is about monitoring
forest disturbances (their locations, size, timing and
causes).
 Community experts the on ground versus SPOT5 and
Rapid Eye data;
 Generally good correspondence;
 Mobile devices worked better than paperbased
(photos, GPS etc)
 Local expert data not evenly spread over the area
 Somewhat inconsistent monitoring frequency
 Better results in monitoring degradation than
deforestation
 Local data is about land use, remote sensing about
land cover

7.  Brofeldt et al follow up on earlier work and
Show that accuracy of community carbon
stock measurements improves over time
confirm earlier findings that costs of
community measurement are less than for
professional foresters
stress that successful monitoring is related to
use of simple measurement methods

8.  Balderas Torres et al examine the potential and
sustainability of community monitoring in the 13
projects in REDD+ Early Action programmes in
Mexico. They note that:
 they each have their own approach (non-
standardised);
 all have the resources and capacity to carry out
monitoring,
 but in most (though not all) cases, these skills are in
the hands of intermediary organizations, not within
the communities themselves.
 They conclude that major capacity building
would be needed if communities were to do the
monitoring on their own.

9. • Paneque-Galvez et al explore the possibility
of drones for community based surveys
 The technical potential is excellent, and the costs
are relatively low
 Advantages: possibility for high frequency data,
sytematic coverage, good assessment of areas
of degadation
 Disadvantages: airspace regulations (?); local
social tensions
 Should first be tested in areas where
communities are already involved in monitoring,
for comparison

10. Skutsch et al start from point of view of systems
for distribution of benefits under national
REDD+ programmes (input versus output
based) and show that:
 output-based systems would need much more,
and more accurate, data at local level than input
based systems, with associated transaction costs
 it would be impossible for each community to
provide data on its reduced D&D without an
individual baseline
 in connecting to national MRV systems, a main
function of local data could be to assess the
success/failure of public policies/interventions ,
on basis of carbon and social data

11. • Boissière et al. is a research design for
further study, with a focus on looking at how
local data can flow to national databases.
 Social analysis to probe the enabling conditions
for local participation
 Goverance analysis to understand data flow,
using the health sector as a comparison
 Remote sensing work to compare the gap
between local (land use) and national (land
cover) approaches
 A very rich and thoughtful design which hopefully
will soon provide interesting results

12.  Shrestra et al. present evidence that local
communities can measure growth in their
carbon stocks;
benefit sharing is in part based on the
measured increase, but weighted to take into
account social indicatators (less priviledged
communities receive a higher payment per
ton).
they do not measure reductions in emissions,
but rather forest enhancements

13.  Bellfield et al. present the case of
community monitoring in Guyana,
explaining how partnerships were built
between local and national institutions,
and discussing the divergence of
expectations and realities across different
scales and among different stakeholders.

14. So what is still uncertain? If community monitored data is to feed into and strengthen the
national MRV database, the monitoring will require standardization,
which may reduce community interest; what should be included, and
who should decide this?
 If it is only about monitoring carbon stocks, communities may not be
so interested
 In a performance based benefit distribution system, how can
benefits be distributed also to local actors outside the forest?
 Can performance based benefit systems respond to equity concerns
at levels above the project level?
 Who should design or set rules for the benefit distribution systems
– UNFCCC level or national?
 Should communities be paid for monitoring apart from any benefits
for forest management /carbon?

15.  Hopefully the discussion today will help to
move us towards answers to some of
these questions!

16. Thank you for your attention