Forests and Climate Change Mitigation

Abstract

Forest ecosystems are increasingly being recognized for their important role in climate change mitigation because of their ability to regulate the carbon cycle. As a result, national and global initiatives such as afforestation/reforestation under CDM and REDD+ have been initiated to enhance the role of forests in climate change mitigation. Understanding the relationship between forests and climate change mitigation is necessary to enable the meaningful participation of forest practitioners in forest carbon projects and programmes. This chapter explores and highlights aspects of climate change mitigation as linked to forestry by explaining the meaning of climate change mitigation while also introducing various types of GHG sinks. Also covered in the chapter are relevant national strategies and policies in addition to available forest and non-forest based options for participating in mitigation activities. The chapter ends by giving an overview of M & E methods available for mitigation projects.