Role of Forest Monitoring in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Kei Suzuki (Japan Forest Technology Association (JAFTA))

Session 1

Role of Forest Monitoring in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Kei Suzuki (Japan Forest Technology Association (JAFTA))

I would like to introduce to you results of a JICA project in the Congo as a case study.

In the latter

half, I will talk about the role of forest monitoring by using a case study, and will focus on how project-level
forest monitoring should be conducted.

Then I would like to pose a question.

The Location and Purpose of the JICA ProjectThis map shows the location of DRC.
country.

The area is about six times as big as Japan, so it is a huge

The forest area is about 154 million hectares, and it is about one-fourth of the African

continent’s forests.

It is on the other side from the Amazon, and it is called ‘one lung of the earth’.

JICA’s project takes place in this area, which used to be called Bandundu district, but is currently divided
into the three regions of Mai-Ndombe, Kwilu, and Kwango.
World Bank1 is also taking place.

1

http://www.worldbank.org/

In Mai-Ndombe a FCPF project by theSession 1

As for the components handled in the JICA project, in order to build a national forest monitoring
system2, mainly there are three components. One is remote sensing to create a forest map to understandthe forest loss.

This is not just for the forest area, but is also to calculate biomass and the forest carbon

stocks. Also, all three states have implemented this project and have also developed databases.

Of

course, the purpose of this project is to contribute to sustainable forest management at the sub-nationallevel.
Forest Classification Methods

I would like to explain the results we have achieved, such as maps and above-ground inventories.
The first survey took place in 1995, followed by 2000, 2010, and 2014.
four different time periods.

We created a map covering theThis then becomes the data to determine historical forest cover as well as

timepoints to see how the forests changed.

This data is called ‘activity data’ the REDD world.

In former

Bandundu state, to the north is tropical moist forest that is quite large, covering about 80% of Japan’s landarea.

To the north, there is a tropical humid forest, and then there are dry forests in the south.

large variety of different types of forests.

2

http://redd.unfccc.int/fact-sheets/national-forest-monitoring-system.html

There is aRole of Forest Monitoring in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Kei Suzuki (Japan Forest Technology Association (JAFTA))

Session 1

When using this map, what sorts of satellite data are used, what categories of forests should be created,and how to classify forests were the first issues to be tackled.

There is a limit to remote sensing, and there

is a question as to whether it is feasible to use it in forest planning, these two aspects need to be balanced inorder to do good categorization.

The first category is dense humid tropical forests.

dense humid forests on flat terrain with a lot of precipitation.
is dry forests.

The second is quite

The third is secondary forests.

Three categories of open forests are included in the fourth category.

savannah and farmland, which are all non-forests.

The fourth
The rest are

These are the categories.

We categorized using data from the 10-meter resolution advanced land observing satellite (ALOS) datafrom 2010, 1995, 2000, and 2014.
reference levels.
classifications.

For other areas, we used 30-meter resolution Landsat data to determine

In other words, depending on the type of satellite used, we made small changes to theCategories seven and eight have changed.

Reference levels are divided into forests and non-forests.

However, since the biomass levels between

the first and the second categories is not that great, we have classified them both simply as ‘forest dense’.
This completes forest classification.

As mentioned earlier, the area is about 80% to 85% the size of Japan.
four time points, so there are 80 scenes in total.

There are 20 Landsat scenes at

The 10-meter high-resolution images from 2010 wereSession 1
used as the base, and we see the changes from 2010.

There are 80 Landsat scenes, there are quite a few

images that the remote sensing experts can work with.

The Congo is huge, as you can tell from this.

This shows the results of analysis for three time periods, from 1995 to 2000, 2000 to 2010, and 2010 to2014.

Each grid is 20 kilometers. Each grid shows how much deforestation took place.

created by visually checking where deforestation is taking place.
deforestation is getting worse.

The map was

In the upper right, you can see that

The reason is that this area is close to the capital of Kinshasa, so fuel woodis being taken to be used in the city.

There are also many forest concessions, so logging is taking place.

This is the aggregate calculation of the area. On the left you see the three categories of deforestation,degradation, and gain (forest recovery). You can see deforestation caused dense forest (FD) areas to go to
non-forest areas (NF), and secondary forests (FSC) to non-forest areas.
going to non-forest areas.

Then you see open forest areas

Degradation is a shift from one forest type to another, such as going fromdense forest to secondary forest, so there is qualitative degradation. Gain shown in the change matrix are
areas going from non-forest to forest dense, or from non-forest to secondary forest.
per year, so this shows a decrease in area each year.

The unit is hectares

For instance, from 1995 to 2000, the high-quality

dense forests disappeared to the extent of 18,713 hectares per year.

Naturally, a change of dense forest

into non-forest is deforestation. However, if we look just at deforestation, from 1995 to 2014, about
30,915 hectares per year were deforested.

The area of the 23 wards of Tokyo is about twice that, soroughly an area equal to half of Tokyo has been disappearing every year since 1995 until the present.
gives you an idea of the scale and the impact of deforestation.
overall land area, but even so, the scale is quite large.

ThisThis represents only a few percent of theRole of Forest Monitoring in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Kei Suzuki (Japan Forest Technology Association (JAFTA))

Session 1

Calculating Emission Levels

Next, I would like to explain about the calculation of carbon emissions and the results of investigations
on the ground.
The former state of Bandundu is shown on the left of the map. You have to go to the field to dosampling. A lot of the areas are swamps, so you have to endure difficult travel by boat.
several days to travel to the spot and collect the data.
of trees and each tree is quite large.

It may takeIn the case of moist forest, there are a large number

In the case of the open or dry forests, there is a lot of open areas

without canopy cover.

When calculating national forest inventories (NFI), we need to avoid bias by establishing sampling grids
in a systematic manner, and by collecting data based on sampling methods.
on convenience or ease of access.

You cannot collect data based

You have to go wherever the random sampling indicates you must go tocollect the data, which makes it quite difficult.
We divided our sampling methods into two types, one for use in moist forests and one for use in dryforests.

In the case of moist forests, we established four sub-plots in an area. Each square is 60 metersby 60 meters.

We would collect data from four areas with a length and width of 60 meters each.

In thecase of the dry forests, we used a sampling method where we went along an L-shaped trajectory. At an

Session 1
equal distance, we would establish an area with a diameter of 30 meters and collect all of the sample data inthat area at each of these 10 points.

There are good reasons why we used different sampling methods.

Here we see the results of our very difficult sampling exercise.

In the case of dense moist forests andswamp forests, we got about 30 points, and since there were four areas we sampled, we got data from a totalof 120 points.

In the case of dry forests, we also got 33 points, so in total we got 63 sets of data.

In thecase of the dense moist forests, we collected data at the points indicated in red.

The results of the sampling were used to estimate biomass per hectare.

Regarding dense moist forests,

we found there were 372 tons of biomass per hectare corresponding to 175 tons per hectare of carbon,which then corresponds to 641 tons of CO2 per hectare.

In the case of secondary forests, we found 446

tons per hectare of CO2 equivalence. Dry forest was 134 tons of CO2 per hectare.
non-forests, there is some biomass.

Even in the case of

There may be trees growing there even though it does not fit thedefinition of a forest, so there is some aboveground biomass even in non-forest areas.

When you look at

the numbers, the amount of biomass in non-forest areas is not insignificant.
Using this data, we developed an emission factor based on changes in forest type, which was quite easy.
For a change from dense forest to non-forest, we subtracted 47.98 from 641, which means a loss of 593
tons of carbon per hectare.

When dense forest changes to non-forest, per hectare you have emissions

Role of Forest Monitoring in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Kei Suzuki (Japan Forest Technology Association (JAFTA))

Session 1

corresponding to 539 tons of CO2, which is multiplied by the number of hectares that changed
We got map data from four time points, and we got data from more than 60 sampling plots on theground.

That was the basis for our data, and I would also like to explain our development of a database,which is also important.
Database System Development

In the JICA project, we developed a data input system for the database. You may think this is a mere
data entry interface and that it is not important, but this is actually very important.
restrictions on inputting the data.

We apply various

By doing this, we can standardize the data input done by different

people, and that helps increase the reliability of the data. From the perspective of quality control andquality assurance, having such a system is quite important.
Here is the overall input flow.

Session 1
Structure of FREL/FRL

Let me explain what we got in terms of reference levels.

We compared dense forests, areas intransition, and dry forests, for which the forest cover ratio was 71%, 21%, and 30% respectively.
This shows the reference levels., and you can see that deforestation is increasing, degradation not somuch.

In terms of the gain, we are seeing a slight gain in recent years.

When we look at central Kwilu Province, we get the results as shown here.
Finally, I would like to explain the estimates of annual CO2 emissions from 1995 to 2014.
the reference levels for the three provinces of former Bandundu state.

FAO, with the support of JICA,

has been working on reference levels for DRC as a whole, and these are the results of that effort.
very difficult job to complete these reference levels for DRC.

These areIt was aRole of Forest Monitoring in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Kei Suzuki (Japan Forest Technology Association (JAFTA))

Session 1

The data from two time periods are being used to get the data, 2000 and 2014.

This is the data for theentire country.
A number of achievements were made by JICA.

Being able to get the reference levels was a greatachievement, and sub-national reference levels could also be attained.

In the next phase, JICA wants tofocus more on project activities rather than just national monitoring activities.

They will be focusing onKwilu Province and carrying out projects there.
The Role of Forest Monitoring

I have been explaining the results of the JICA project in DRC. Next, I would like to change gears andexplain about monitoring and its role in more detail.
If we focus just on the project level, there are two approaches.

If there is no national FREL and FRL,

then you would want to create a reference level as a demonstration, and try to use that to influence thenational FREL.

The other case is where national FREL and FRL already exist.

project would be carried out for implementation.
follow the national FRL and FREL.

In that case, a REDD

Therefore, the FRL and FREL for the project willSession 1

Quite a few countries have already established FRL and FREL, so approach one of doing evaluation asa demonstration and inputting it at the national level is not so common.

Pattern two where theseevaluations are done after the national FREL and FRL have been established is more common.

You might

ask why is it necessary to do forest monitoring at a project level.
I would like to express my thoughts on this.
deforestation and degradation are evaluated.

In national forest monitoring systems, generally only
Biodiversity, policy, and livelihood are generally notmonitored in the national forest monitoring systems.

Meanwhile, in projects it is possible to cover othertopics. Especially biodiversity, policy, and livelihood can be covered as part of projects.

If projects cancontribute to the SDGs, it is very important to collect data on these aspects as part of projects.

I have some topics for discussion.

Regarding the reference levels, quite a few countries have been

submitting their reference levels in the hope of getting results-based finance, but project monitoring isimportant not just for financing. From a broader prospective, we need to think about what is necessary.
As countries develop their reference levels, they are moving from the preparatory stage to theimplementation stage for REDD+. At the time of implementation, the way monitoring should be carriedout, the purpose, and the contents of monitoring should also be considered.

Also, if the project measures

Role of Forest Monitoring in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Kei Suzuki (Japan Forest Technology Association (JAFTA))

Session 1

diversity, then that will enhance the value of the project and it is meaningful to do so.

Lastly, I would liketo discuss the different scales of sub-national, national, and project-level forest monitoring.
thank JICA because they helped us a great deal with the Congo project.

I would like to