Carbon Emissions Baselines

Conservation International's Regional Programs Department (RPD) and the Center for Applied Biodiversity (CABS) is charged with developing a portfolio of site-based carbon-offset projects. This task requires developing the expertise of its regional programs to conduct REDD project development, including the technical capacity to estimate carbon-emissions baselines that are transparent, and validated to a level to achieve confidence from the carbon-investment community.

Conservation International's Climate Change Initiatives program in RPD led a training event on Forest Carbon Project Development in the Fall of 2007 in Quito, Ecuador. The objective of the training was to provide guidance on how to develop innovative forest carbon projects that contribute to mitigating climate change, while conserving biodiversity and promoting local community livelihoods.

"Deforestation and land use change account for roughly 20 % of green house gas emissions. Protecting forests will not only preserve biodiversity but also help to reduce the rate and degree of climate change," indicated Stefano Crema, Research Associate at Clark Labs.

The course was attended by over 30 trainees from 12 regions. It was based on lessons learned and the experiences in the development of existing projects in Ecuador, Madagascar, Indonesia and others.

Clark Labs contributed to the workshop and assisted in the development of site-level baseline scenarios of carbon emissions using IDRISI Andes and its Land Change Modeler application. Several different models and approaches were explored for estimating these baseline scenarios. The required input data was determined and the models were then validated. Necessary data to execute the scenario models for the emissions baselines included GIS data on roads, towns, rivers and topography, forest biomass, and historical deforestation patterns in and around the site for three time periods.  Existing methods guidelines were provided by Clark Labs.