Posted on June, 20 2012

Sixteen specialists from more than five nations convened in Puerto Maldonado, Madre de Dios, Peru for ten days in May to share and build their knowledge and expertise on measuring, reporting and verifying (MRV) REDD+ activities through hands-on field work and discussions.
 
With the vision of “If you are here, you will learn. Teach and then discuss,” all participants presented or led applied exercises and learned from each other and their experiences across Asia, Africa and Latin America.
 
The event was hosted by both WWF’s global Forest and Climate Initiative and WWF-Peru, and was led by Dr. Naikoa Aguilar-Amuchastegui, WWF’s Senior Forest Carbon Scientist, and an MRV specialist.
 
Participants’ goals were to reach a common understanding about what MRV systems are, what they are supposed to deliver, and their linkages with reference levels, international policy, standards and conservation strategies.
 
“The policy linkages that we explored were extremely useful as this allowed participants to appreciate different approaches to the same concepts,” said Aguilar-Amuchastegui.
 
Participants also had the opportunity to explore through discussions and hands-on field work:

•     Basic definitions of MRV-related concepts
•     Available approaches to MRV systems components implementation
•     Political implications of MRV
•     Data availability
•     Change detection approaches
•     Radar data analysis
•     LiDAR data processing
•     Plot data collection and allometric equations development
•     Reference levels
•     Relevant standards
•     Deforestation risk modeling
•     On-going work across participants’ regions/projects.

It is hoped that through capacity building initiatives such as this, that WWF can help build a community of MRV practitioners that share unified criteria for MRV systems, and that speak a common language when engaging REDD+ decision makers, project managers and stakeholders.
 
Similar future events are planned for south-east Asia and the Congo Basin region of Africa.