Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
UNEPWMO

Good Practice Guidancefor Land Use,
Land-Use Change and Forestry
Edited byJim Penman, Michael Gytarsky, Taka Hiraishi, Thelma Krug, Dina Kruger,
Riitta Pipatti, Leandro Buendia, Kyoko Miwa, Todd Ngara,
Kiyoto Tanabe and Fabian Wagner

IPCC National Greenhouse Gas Inventories ProgrammePublished by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) for the IPCC
© The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2003.
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ContentsCONTENTS

Acknowledgement ................................................................................................................................................ iv
Preface ................................................................................................................................................................... v
Chapters
1Overview ................................................................................................................................................... 1.1

2

Basis for Consistent Representation of Land Areas .................................................................................. 2.1

3

LUCF Sector Good Practice Guidance ...................................................................................................... 3.1

4

Supplementary Methods and Good Practice Guidance Arising from the Kyoto Protocol ......................... 4.1

5

Cross-Cutting Issues .................................................................................................................................. 5.1

Annexes
Annex AGlossary ...................................................................................................................................... G.1

Annex BBasic Information ......................................................................................................................... B.1

Annex C

Abbreviations and Acronyms .................................................................................................... AA.1

Annex D

List of Reviewers ...................................................................................................................... LR.1

IPCC Good Practice Guidance for LULUCFiii

Acknowledgement

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The preparation of the Good Practice Guidance for Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (GPG-LULUCF)
has been a major undertaking by the IPCC National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Programme (NGGIP). The
success in producing this report has depended foremost on the knowledge, enthusiasm and co-operation of theCoordinating Lead Authors, Lead Authors and Contributing Authors – some 150 worldwide. We wish to thankthe authors for the time and effort devoted to the task, as well as the commitment to the IPCC process.
Review editors have ensured that the process for consideration of the comments has been appropriate. We would
like to thank them for this important task.
UNFCCC Secretariat staff, Roberto Acosta, Claudio Forner and Heikki Granholm participated in the preparationof the report giving background and guidance on issues related to the Convention, the Kyoto Protocol and theMarrakesh Accords. We wish to thank them for their valuable input.
The Steering Group, consisting of the IPCC TFI Co-chairs Taka Hiraishi and Thelma Krug, and Michael
Gytarsky (Russian Federation), Dina Kruger (USA) and Jim Penman (UK), has guided the work and ensured
internal consistency within the report as well as consistency with the Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines for National
Greenhouse Gas Inventories. We would like to express our gratitude for their skilful leadership and guidance
throughout the preparation of the report.
Five authors/experts meetings were held in Eisenach, Germany; Tampere, Finland; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia; and Sydney, Australia during the course of preparation of the report. We wish to thank thehost countries and hosting organisations for co-organising these meetings.
Two combined government/expert reviews were organised during the preparation of the report; the first during
the period 2 December 2002 to 27 January 2003, and the second during 2 May 2003 to 27 June 2003. The firstreview resulted in almost 6,000 comments, the second in some 4,000 comments. The comments have provided
additional expertise to the work in a constructive way, and consideration of the comments improved the drafts
considerably. We wish to thank all reviewers for their comments.
The NGGIP Technical Support Unit (TSU Head Riitta Pipatti, Programme Officers Leandro Buendia, Kyoko
Miwa, Todd Ngara, Kiyoto Tanabe and Fabian Wagner, Administrative Assistant Ayako Hongo, Project
Secretary Akiko Kawase, and IT Officer John Lane) provided guidance as well as technical and organisational
support for the project. They worked tirelessly with the authors as they managed the final editing of the report.
We wish to thank them for their hard and competent work.
IPCC Secretariat (Rudie Bourgeois, Annie Courtin and Chantal Ettori) provided assistance for organising themeetings and for the reviews. We wish to thank them for their effort and flexibility in responding to the needs tothe authors and the TSU during the tight schedule.
Last but not least, we wish to thank the IPCC Chair Rajendra Pachauri, IPCC Secretary Geoff Love (untilAugust 2003), Acting Secretary Renate Christ and the Task Force Bureau on Inventories (Co-chairs, and IanCarruthers, Soobaraj N. Sok Appadu, Kirit Parikh, Dhari Al-Ajimi, Jamidu Katima, Javier Hanna Figueroa (untilJune 2003), Sergio Gonzalez-Martineaux, Art Jaques, Dina Kruger, Helen Plume, Audun Rosland and SaadKhorfan) for their support, advice and encouragement.

G.O.P. Obasi

K. Töpfer

Secretary-General
World Meteorological Organisation

Executive Director
United Nations Environmental Programme

iv

IPCC Good Practice Guidance for LULUCF

PrefacePREFACE
This report on Good Practice Guidance for Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (GPG-LULUCF) is theresponse to the invitation by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)1 to theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)2 to develop good practice guidance for land use, land-use
change and forestry (LULUCF). GPG-LULUCF provides supplementary methods and good practice guidancefor estimating, measuring, monitoring and reporting on carbon stock changes and greenhouse gas emissions from
LULUCF activities under Article 3, paragraphs 3 and 4, and Articles 6 and 12 of the Kyoto Protocol.
The GPG-LULUCF assists countries in producing inventories for the land use, land-use change and forestry
sector that are neither over- nor underestimates so far as can be judged, and in which uncertainties are reduced asfar as practicable. It supports the development of inventories that are transparent, documented, consistent overtime, complete, comparable, assessed for uncertainties, subject to quality control and quality assurance, andefficient in the use of resources.
The GPG-LULUCF is consistent with the existing good practice guidance for the other sector and addresses:•Choice of estimation method within the context of the IPCC Guidelines;•Quality assurance and quality control procedures to provide cross-checks during the inventory compilation;•Data and information to be documented, archived and reported to facilitate review and assessment ofinventory estimates;•Quantification of uncertainties at the source or sink category level and for the inventory as a whole, so that
resources available can be directed toward reducing uncertainties over time, and the improvement can betracked.

In addition, GPG-LULUCF provides guidance related to the specific features of the LULUCF sector on
consistent representation of land areas, sampling for area estimates and for estimating emissions and removals,verification, and guidance on how to complement the Convention reporting for the LULUCF sector to meet thesupplementary requirements under the Kyoto Protocol.
The development of good practice guidance for LULUCF sector is a step in the IPCC’s on-going programme ofinventory development and will also support future revisions of the IPCC Guidelines themselves.

1 Decision 11/CP.7 (Land use, land-use change and forestry) in FCCC/CP/2001/13/Add.1, paragraphs 3(a) and 3 (b), page 55.
2 IPCC was established jointly by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment

Programme (UNEP) to•••Make periodic assessments of the science, impacts and the socio-economic aspects of climate change and ofadaptation and mitigation options to address it;
Assess, and develop as necessary, methodologies such as the IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas
Inventories;
Provide, on request, scientific/technical/socio-economic advice to the Conference of the Parties to the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its bodies.

IPCC Good Practice Guidance for LULUCFv