Biodiversity for REDD+

Papua New Guinea is embarking on its first multi-purpose National Forest Inventory (NFI) under the arrangements for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD)+ in the framework of the pursuits of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change.

The inventory, which will be a key component of PNG’s first Forest Monitoring System, will include not only activities for measuring timber volume and estimating carbon stocks and greenhouse gas emissions but also, significantly, a protocol for the first survey and monitoring of the nation’s forest biodiversity.

The Mountain Partnership Secretariat has been supporting PNG’s Forest Authority to integrate the NFI design with an appropriate methodology to assess forest biodiversity at national scale.

The combined inventory will make it possible to assess the trade-offs between protecting biodiversity and reducing emissions. The aim is to maximize both objectives and to reduce the risk of an unsustainable use of forest resources, which undermines the resilience of forests and, in turn, their capacity to provide the goods and services that humans require.

The data produced by Papua New Guinea’s NFI will be instrumental in developing sound government policies to sustainably manage the nation’s biodiverse forest heritage, on which most of the nation’s population depends for its livelihoods and food.