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Good practice Imported

PNG's National Forest Monitoring System — Satellite & Radar-Based Carbon Tracking

Papua New Guinea · Port Moresby · See the Papua New Guinea profile · See the Port Moresby profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 76% 33/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Papua New Guinea combines satellite imagery, radar and FAO's Open Foris GIS tools in a national forest monitoring system spanning about 1,000 forest clusters, underpinning the UNFCCC-verified 9 million tonnes of CO2 reductions credited for 2014-2015 and a public forest-monitoring

9 million tonnes CO2
UNFCCC-verified CO2 emission reductions (2014–2015)
261,528 hectares
Deforestation 2000–2015 (FRL baseline) (2000–2015)
~1,000
Forest monitoring clusters
240,000 hectares
Peak commercial-logging degradation (2012) (2012)

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
PNG Forest Authority / Climate Change and Development Authority, with JICA, FAO, EU, GEF and UN-REDD support
Period
2014–present
Keywords
forestry, remote sensing, carbon accounting, biodiversity monitoring

Context

Papua New Guinea's national forest monitoring system, built from 2014 with Japan's JICA and expanded through a 2016 National Forest Inventory backed by the European Union, the Global Environment Facility, the UK's AIM4Forests programme and UN-REDD, underlies the country's REDD+ reporting to the UNFCCC.

Objectives

The system aims to track forest carbon stocks, vegetation and biodiversity across PNG's cloud-covered terrain accurately enough to support internationally verified REDD+ carbon-credit claims.

Activities

It combines satellite imagery and radar (needed to see through PNG's persistent cloud cover) with FAO's Open Foris Collect Earth GIS tool, and ground teams verify remote-sensing results across roughly 1,000 forest monitoring clusters, tracking carbon stocks, 12 vegetation types and biodiversity data on a public Forest & Land Use Monitoring Geo-Portal.

Results

PNG's Forest Reference Level submission documented 261,528 hectares cleared between 2000 and 2015, and the UNFCCC subsequently verified 9 million tonnes of CO2 emission reductions for 2014–2015, the country's first nationally issued REDD+ forestry carbon credits.

Conclusions

87% of PNG's historical deforestation is driven by agricultural conversion that the monitoring system tracks but cannot itself curb, and 2021 UNFCCC reporting coverage does not detail how consistently the system operates outside its JICA/EU-funded project areas, a reminder that donor-built monitoring capacity does not automatically translate into nationwide enforcement.

Implementation
Indicative cost
High (€500k–€5M) — Multi-donor funded national MRV infrastructure (JICA, EU, GEF, UN-REDD); no single aggregate cost figure given.
Time to results
Long (> 3 years) — Built from 2014, expanded via a 2016 National Forest Inventory, ongoing to present.
Staffing & skills
PNG Forest Authority / Climate Change and Development Authority staff, Ground verification teams across ~1,000 monitoring clusters, JICA, FAO, EU, GEF and UN-REDD technical support

Conditions for success

  • Multi-donor funding (JICA, EU, GEF, UK AIM4Forests, UN-REDD)
  • FAO's Open Foris Collect Earth tool combined with satellite and radar to penetrate persistent cloud cover
  • Ground-truthing teams verifying remote-sensing results across monitoring clusters

Common failure modes

  • Donor-built MRV capacity may not extend consistently outside JICA/EU-funded project areas
  • The monitoring system tracks deforestation drivers (87% agricultural conversion) but cannot itself curb them

Where it fits

Governance type
national government agency with multi-donor support
Scale
national
Income level
lower-middle-income

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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