Just out -- rapid monitoring to help REDD+ programs reduce carbon emissions

Greetings from the Center for Global Development (CGD). Enormous greenhouse gas emissions are generated by deforestation, mostly in tropical countries. It follows that any viable effort to mitigate climate change will have to address tropical forest clearing, and REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) programs are focusing on this problem. However, implementation of many REDD+ programs has been hampered by the lack of timely information on local forest clearing. CGD’s Forest Monitoring for Action (FORMA) system has been designed to help fill this information gap.

After three years of development work, we're pleased to announce the first global implementation of FORMA, which tracks monthly tropical forest clearing since December 2005 in 27 countries, their 280 states and provinces, and over 2,900 subprovinces and municipalities. We’ll soon release a companion GIS database that tracks monthly clearing in each square kilometer of tropical forest land in the countries covered by FORMA.
We have posted our first global report, which introduces FORMA and provides summary data and graphics, at http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/1425835/

ClimateWire has a feature article on FORMA at http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2012/01/05/4 "New mapping programs show the 'big picture' of vanishing trees."
I've posted an overview of FORMA's first report on CGD's website (cgdev.org) at http://blogs.cgdev.org/globaldevelopment/2012/01/good-tidings-from-tropical-forests-large-scale-clearing-has-fallen-sharply.php

My post includes links to spreadsheet databases with monthly clearing data for all the countries, provinces and subprovinces covered by FORMA. It also includes links to two papers that explore the policy implications of this vast new information source. We hope that FORMA will provide useful information for the climate policy and research communities.
We'll post regular FORMA updates and inform subscribers to our newsletter at http://www.cgdev.org/section/topics/climate_change/newsletter_archive

David Wheeler

Senior Fellow, Climate Change Center for Global Development Washington, DC