Forest Carbon commences research on new VCS Fire Methodology with GIZ-Laos

May 2, 2011 - PRLog -- This week, Forest Carbon's Scott Stanley headed to Laos to begin a feasibility study for a new project in Lao PDR with the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ)'s Climate Protection through Avoided Deforestation (CliPAD) Project. Forest Carbon (http://www.forest-carbon.org) will be undertaking the first initial assessment of putting together a new VCS level methodology targeting the measurement of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agricultural and forest fires in the mountainous region of northern Laos, in the province of Sayabouri, for CliPAD's Nam Phui Landscape VCS REDD project.

Mr. Stanley, in association with Gabriel Eickhoff, will undertake field work in Sayabouri villages this week that will look at linking ground-based data on fire burn scar areas and new satellite imagery (Rapid Eye, Quickbird and SPOT). A previous study undertaken by GIZ Laos on the use of MODIS satellite imagery for MRV purposes showed several deficiencies in a MODIS-only approach.  Forest Carbon's work with GIZ will builds on that previous work to combine MODIS data with extensive field-level forest fire burn area sampling, a modified fire behavior and fuel load model from the US Forest Service, and a new collaboration with Gernot Rücker from Munich-based ZEBRIS Consulting (http://www.zebris-gis.de) on new remote sensing techniques from the highly anticipated FireBIRD satellite.

"If successful, this would have enormous potential not just for the GIZ project in Laos, and Laos as a whole, but much of southeast Asia and similar countries in Latin America and central Africa where forest fires contribute significant amounts of greenhouse gases. It would be a game changer for projects with low deforestation rates, but high incidences of forest fires that drive large scale degradation. We're really excited about this new collaboration and opportunity to work with GIZ in Laos." said Mr. Stanley.

The cooperation may also include contributions and participation from a new EU initiative of 14 European Academic Institutions working on research for the implementation of REDD (IREDD) in Laos.

Phase-I of the work will look at overall feasibility, initial ground surveys and the building and adapting of the USGS fire model for Laotian conditions. Results are expected by the end of May when Phase-II would begin and incorporate additional data from ZEBRIS and other collaborators.

About Forest Carbon
Forest Carbon (http://www.forest-carbon.org) is a vertically integrated firm based in Indonesia capable of providing services for carbon baseline  measurement, REDD project design and implementation, and forest monitoring for the voluntary and compliance markets. Forest Carbon’s experts are specialized in a number of core disciplines including tropical ecology, silviculture, GIS/remote sensing, social policy and environmental policy.

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Forest Carbon is an Indonesian-based firm that addresses the need for a regionally focused team capable of providing technical services for carbon forestry projects in tropical rain forest countries.