The scope of REDD+ now includes, in addition to reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation, conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (‘negative degradation’). This means that countries participating in REDD+ will need to carry out forest inventories regularly and systematically to measure changes in forest carbon stocks. Forest inventories could be expensive if professional surveyors are employed and there could be a serious shortage of survey services. A cheaper option would be for communities in forest areas to do the forest inventories, particularly communities that are involved in payments for environmental services (PES) or other community forest management (CFM) schemes.
This chapter looks at ways in which communities could carry out forest inventories to monitor changes in carbon stocks. First, we explain the detailed data that communities and countries would need to collect if they are to be rewarded for reduced degradation and for forest enhancement. We then briefly present the steps involved in collecting data and describe some experiences with community carbon monitoring. Finally, we discuss reliability and costs, and how community carbon monitoring might be integrated into national REDD+ systems, and draw some conclusions. The chapter is mainly based on the authors’ experience of the Kyoto: Think Global, Act Local (K:TGAL) programme.1
