1. Drivers, forest transitions and setting
baselines at sub-national level
Sonya Dewi
with
Meine van Noordwijk,
Peter Minang

2. OUTLINE
• Reference Emission Levels (REL) in the
context of REDD and land based NAMAs
(Submission to SBSTA UNFCCC, February 28 2012)
• Experiences and lessons learnt from
Indonesia

3. REL IN THE CONTEXT OF
REDD+ AND LAND-BASED
NAMA

4. Key points
• The forest transition’concept can be operationalized as typology of
subnational entities within a large country; an example for
Indonesia
• Different REL calculation techniques apply to different stages of
forest transition, at (sub)national level, to fulfill fairness and
efficiency principles
• Evaluation of existing (pre‐REDD discussion) planned
deforestation’provides an indication of feasible emissions, as
regards infrastructure, labour and capital requirements for
conversion
• The concept of reference level’of deforestation is non‐ operational
unless a stringent ‘natural forest’definition can be agreed upon
internationally; for example Indonesia's recent deforestation rate
varies from ‐0.5 to 3% depending on the forest definition used.
• Linear temporal and spatial extrapolation of historical emission
trends is neither a realistic nor a fair basis for determining REL

5. Local circumstances
• Variation within a country regarding land
use changes and drivers of land use
changes, and therefore emissions in the
past
• Variation wrt poverty, HDI, population
density, regional income – needs for
economic growth and equity
• Variations in land and forest resources –
stock

7. 60% Undisturbed forest; deforestation are lowest
20% Undisturbed forest; half LOF; degradation is highest
<20% UF, degraded forest and estate; deforestation is highest
10% natural forest; 30% mixed tree, 15% estate and crop:
deforestation >degradation, but lower than the above
10% natural forest; 30% estate, 15% crop land and mixed tree
40% crop land, small fraction of NF in PA, 20% estate, 15%
mixed tree and settlement
Forest transitions
From landcover 1990, 2000, 2005

8. Proposed methodology

9. Forward Looking REL
Historical REL
Discounted Historical REL
Historical RL
Proposed methodology for REL

10. Forward looking scenario: Aligning
baseline scenario and REL with
development and land use planning

11. Land use/cover map of 2005 and existing plan of
Papua

12. Baseline scenario and REL based on driver
modelling

13. Example: Spatially explicit model
of land use change
• Modelling with Neural
Network (Multilayer
Perceptron) in IDRISI
• Scope: Berau and East
Kalimantan
• Period: 2000 – 2020
• Proximate drivers: land
suitability, elevation, spatial
plan, distance to road,
river, settlement, logging
concession, forest
plantation, distances to
forest and changed area,
population density

14. Actual 2008
2010
2020

15. Key points
• The forest transition’concept can be operationalized as typology of
subnational entities within a large country; an example for
Indonesia
• Different REL calculation techniques apply to different stages of
forest transition, at (sub)national level, to fulfill fairness and
efficiency principles
• Evaluation of existing (pre‐REDD discussion) planned
deforestation’provides an indication of feasible emissions, as
regards infrastructure, labour and capital requirements for
conversion
• The concept of reference level’of deforestation is non‐ operational
unless a stringent ‘natural forest’definition can be agreed upon
internationally; for example Indonesia's recent deforestation rate
varies from ‐0.5 to 3% depending on the forest definition used.
• Linear temporal and spatial extrapolation of historical emission
trends is neither a realistic nor a fair basis for determining REL

16. Ex: Linear projection:
historical rate of LULCC
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
T0 T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 T7 T8 T9 T10
Forest
(ha)
Year/period
Deforestation rate = 0.1
Deforestation rate = 0.1
Area of 10,000 ha of forest over 10 year or 10 time periods

17. Key points
• The forest transition’concept can be operationalized as typology of
subnational entities within a large country; an example for
Indonesia
• Different REL calculation techniques apply to different stages of
forest transition, at (sub)national level, to fulfill fairness and
efficiency principles
• Evaluation of existing (pre‐REDD discussion) planned
deforestation’provides an indication of feasible emissions, as
regards infrastructure, labour and capital requirements for
conversion
• The concept of reference level’of deforestation is non‐ operational
unless a stringent ‘natural forest’definition can be agreed upon
internationally; for example Indonesia's recent deforestation rate
varies from ‐0.5 to 3% depending on the forest definition used.
• Linear temporal and spatial extrapolation of historical emission
trends is neither a realistic nor a fair basis for determining REL

18. EXPERIENCES AND LESSONS
LEARNT FROM INDONESIA

19. Projection of
Emission Reduction
Reference Emission
Level
2000 2010 2020
Mt/y Projection of
Emission from
Mitigation Scenario
Historic emission for the base period:
- Source of emissions and drivers of
LUCC
- Emission share
Historic Emission
Reference Emission Level:
- Baseline scenario, incl drivers
- Projected emission
Mitigation activities:
- Addressing dominant sources
of emission and levers
- Projected emission from
mitigation

21. Transition Probability Matrix
for setting baseline scenario

22. Reference level
(cumm CO2-eq/ha to 2020)

23. Lessons learnt
• Trainings were conducted with variable success rates nation-wide at
province level
• Progressive provinces have more initiative in collecting data and
building capacities in setting baseline beyond historical projection
• Parallel processes in developing provincial strategies of REDD+ in
pilot provinces were hard to reconcile from the beginning but
converge toward the end
• Unsupported national action plan for mitigation is soon to be
submitted as the Indonesian NAMA
• There are still confusion between LAMA-NAMA nesting due to
political consideration
• Due to attribution, the direct activities and enabling conditions are
mixed up
• Scope of land-based NAMA coincides with REDD+: REL and MRV
should be common between the two mechanisms

24. Recommendations
• District level action planning should take place in
the next round, since it is at the district level
where the real on-the-ground implementation
will be happening
• Design iterative review and revise processes
• Guidelines from the government is necessary to
avoid confusion, including the nesting processes
• Data improvement
• Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting as part of
MRV system

25. THANK YOU VERY MUCH
TERIMA KASIH