In order to provide basic information on technical aspects related to measurement of forest carbon stocks for developing inventories of forest ecosystems and to enable the officers of Indian Forest Service to better understand technical options of Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD plus), Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) organised two days training workshop on REDD plus at ICFRE Dehradun begun on Thursday.
One of the speakers said that globally large scale deforestation has been one of the major sources of greenhouse gas emission besides emissions from fossil fuel burning. REDD plus under United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) intends to give financial incentives to the developing countries for reducing deforestation and forest degradation, promoting forest conservation and sustainable management of forests. UN climate change conference in Warsaw (Poland) in 2013, countries agreed on a ‘Warsaw REDD plus framework’ a complete package of methodological guidance on implementing REDD-plus in the developing countries. At the recently concluded UN Climate Change negotiations held in Bonn from June 1-11, 2015 Country Parties agreed on incentivizing non carbon benefits of REDD-plus such as protection of watersheds and biodiversity and other environmental services.
Dr Ashwani Kumar DG, ICFRE said REDD plus programmes if implemented properly has a great potential for improving the livelihood of forest dwelling communities. In India through strong forest governance and participation of local communities have been traditionally conserving their forests. Now it can be can be financially benefited with REDD plus programs in terms of Payment for Environmental Services, a term which is quite new to India. He further said tackling deforestation and forest degradation is important for implementing REDD plus at national level.
Dr SP Singh DDG (Admin) ICFRE, stressed that REDD plus capacity building is must for forest officers and other front line forest staff. Capacity building is also needed for forest dwelling communities for economic and social benefit.
Dr TP Singh, assistant, director general, Biodiversity and Climate Change at ICFRE elaborated the importance of REDD plus programmes for climate change mitigation and gave an overview of REDD plus concepts scope for its implementation in India.
In the technical sessions, VRS Rawat, scientist from ICFRE spoke on the development of REDD plus in international climate change negotiations and stressed for a need of REDD Plus readiness pilot projects in India. In this training workshop, the experts will discuss on various aspects of REDD plus including developing the methodology for REDD plus for detecting forest changes and associated carbon stocks apart from governance issues in forestry sector, it is learnt.