Shifting cultivation communities in Kalimantan can measure trees

June 13, 2013

Research has shown that local communities can measure trees for carbon monitoring in rather simple forest types (125 plots in miombo woodland in Tanzania, Himalayan oak and pine community forests in Nepal) with the use of handheld computers after extensive training (Margaret Skutsch and KTGAL). Use of handheld computers however constrains effective scaling-up.

Recently this limited evidence base was extended to several new forest types, terrains, socioeconomic contexts, and land tenure systems: tropical lowland forests in Indonesia to monsoon forest in Laos and Vietnam and mountain rain forest in China. Communities can even measure trees for carbon monitoring in species rich forests with only simple field protocols. Pen-and-paper suffice. There is no need for handheld computers (289 plots, Finn Danielsen and I-REDD+).

We (ASFCC) have taken this one big step further. We have adjusted the community MRV methods to shifting cultivation landscapes. We examine whether marginalized community members in landscapes with a very complicated mosaic of land uses can measure trees for carbon monitoring. We provide even less training. We hand over more of the responsibilities for both MRV design and implementation to the communities. This is the first time anyone has tested  community carbon monitoring in shifting cultivation landscapes.

ASFCC can show

• IPCC Good Practice Guidance based community carbon inventory methods can be adjusted to shifting cultivation landscapes.
• Shifting cultivation communities can identify different land-use types in a landscape mosaic and recognize these in the field.
• These land-uses types, identified by community members, can be used for stratifying for carbon monitoring.
• Marginalized shifting cultivation community members can measure trees in dynamic mosaic landscapes with results very similar to the professionals. This has been shown by ASFCC for the first time.
• The shifting cultivation community monitors can re-locate plots within the area used for shifting cultivation by eye-sight and without maps or GPS.
• Nevertheless, if community carbon monitoring in shifting cultivation landscapes is to be accurate, remote sensing will be needed to tell the area of each land-use type.