Murree Hills Forest Monitoring in the Context of Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+)

Abstract

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation plus (REDD+) is a mechanism to cut down GHG emissions and protect threatened forest ecosystems by involving and making them sustainable forest dependent communities. Forests uptake CO2 from the air and providing a great service to human kind. Around 33% carbon emissions into the atmosphere are caused by the human activities such as deforestation and degradation of forested land. Changes in land use pattern may release stored carbon into the atmosphere which is a major source of global warming. Pakistan is facing higher deforestation rates due illegal logging, transforming into agricultural land and development of housing societies that had reduced the forest cover from 5 to 2.5 percent. Deforestation in Murree Hill forests was examined/investigated in the context of REDD+ from year 2000 to 2012 employing MODIS vegetation indices (NDVI/EVI), land cover product MCD12Q1 and CO2 emission inventory. Existing carbon stock data was used to quantify LULUCF emissions based on IPCC guidelines. The findings indicated an increase in vegetation index and an increase of forest cover by 42 percent based on MODIS land cover product. While CO2 emission data sets: EDGAR (Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research) and REAS (Regional Emission inventory for Asia) exhibited an increasing trend on contrary to vegetation indices over study area. Also it didn’t not agree with calculated LULUCF emissions. Overall, outcomes of the study suggest that Murree hills forest is a storehouse of CO2 and it has great potential for REDD+ implementation.