Issues and challenges for forest-based carbon-offset projects: a case study of the Noel Kempff Climate Action Project in Bolivia

摘要

The Noel Kempff Climate Action Project in Bolivia, now in its third year, is breaking ground to establish credible and verifiable methods to quantify greenhouse gas (GHG) benefits of land-use change and forestry (LUCF) projects. Developed under the United Nations Framework Convention Climate Change (FCCC) Activities Implemented Jointly pilot phase, the project conserves natural forests that would otherwise have been subjected to continued logging and future agricultural conversion. Carbon (C) monitoring began with a C inventory of the project area in 1997. The total amount of C in the project area was 118 Tg (Tg = 10~(12)g +- 4% (95% confidence interval). Periodic monitoring of relevant C pools (occurring in 1999 and every 5 yr thereafter) occurs over the 30-year life of the project to establish the difference between the with-project and projected without-project scenarios. permanent sample plots were established both inside the project area to monitor changes in C pools over time and in a proxy logging concession near the project area to determine changes in C pools in forests that have been impacted by logging. Ground-based monitoring is complemented by data collection on forest industry trends and land-use change patterns. Remote sensing was used to develop a vegetation stratification map of the area, and work is ongoing to investigate the potential application of dual-camera aerial videography to improve the efficiency of monitoring over time.