Foresters Trained on MRV to Assist in Forest Carbon Emission Reduction
The Ministry of Fisheries and Forestry held a workshop on Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) on the week of April 19, 2023, in the Northern Division for foresters as part of efforts to reduce carbon emissions and promote sustainable forest management in the forestry sector. Through the Department of Forestry’s REDD+ Unit, the one week training involved officers from the central, western and northern divisions and focused on the studies and tools of implementation for data collection and effective participation in Fiji’s Reducing Emissions and Enhancing Livelihoods Program (ERP).
During the training, the officers visited the villages of Nayarabale, Vuniqalutu and Navunievu. The two first villages have been participating in tree planting activity through the Department’s Restoration of Degraded Forests (RDF) project and have given up portions of their land through an agreement with Forestry to plant trees on 350 hectares in Nayarabale and 100 hectares of land in Vuniqalutu. These three villages lie within the 20 districts in the ER Program namely Nayarabale in the district of Vaturova, Vuniqalutu in the district of Dreketi and Navunievu in the district of Bua.
MRV officer, Viliame Tupua said that having visited these three villages during the week-long training, the communities now have a fair perception of the ER Program and looked forward to the detailed awareness that would be carried out consequently.
“Within the Fiji ER Program, there is a total of 1000ha for Climate smart agriculture earmarked for the Dreketi district and of which targets have to be achieved for results based payments. These were reiterated to forest officers during the week long training and also relayed to the communities in Dreketi,” he said.
From this week, Mr Tupua with the Forester Timber Production in the North, Elimi Kurusiga, will be visiting other ERP selected sites to discuss about the ERP and reporting requirements on the MRV.
With the one week training in the North, officers were able to link to Fiji’s Reducing Emissions and Enhancing Livelihoods Program (ERP) and the MRV component of measuring, collecting data and reporting. The templates provided to the officers will enable them to simplify and detail activities and report specific outputs of carbon emission reductions. Their daily operations will all be recorded and reported using the templates.
What is the MRV in REDD+ implementation
REDD+ refers to mitigation actions in developing countries, relating to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, with the “plus” signifying conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks. Under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), developing countries wishing to engage in REDD+ activities need to ensure that they have the necessary capacity to implement climate change mitigation actions in the forestry sector using a three-phased approach. Successful implementation of such actions relies on robust capabilities to routinely and reliably monitor changes in forest areas, carbon stocks, and associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals through the establishment of a Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) system.
Reporting and monitoring for REDD+ specifically refers to a country’s forest and associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals, including their changes over time. The reliability of the generated information depends on whether data are transparent, consistent, complete, accurate and can be compared over time.
The reliability of the generated information depends on whether data comply with defined quality criteria: transparency, comparability, consistency, completeness, and accuracy. Overall guidance on how to adhere to these criteria has been provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). With funding support from the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) to the Department of Forestry from 2015-2022, the MRV study led to a breakthrough in land use change analysis indicating an annual deforestation rate of less than 1% equivalent to less than 500 hectares per year. Such data are extremely helpful in highlighting why and how to protect forest resources, through recognising the drivers and impacts of deforestation. Through MRV work the Department of Forestry is in the process of completing the National Forest Reference Level to be submitted to the World Bank and also to report to the UNFCCC.
Source: Ministry of Fisheries and Forestry