Background:
Asia is home to extensive forest resources, which cover approximately 30% of the region’s land area. These forests provide a wide array of environmental services to local, regional, and global communities, including carbon storage, biodiversity habitat, watershed protection, and resources to support a range of economic livelihoods. Unfortunately, these forests are being lost and degraded at a rapid pace due to conversion to agriculture and plantation land use, unsustainable logging, infrastructure development, climate change, and a range of other pressures. According to the World Resource Institute’s Climate Analysis Indicator’s Tool, the forestry and land use sector is the largest source of Southeast Asia’s GHG emissions, and a significant contributor to global climate change.
Global momentum has been growing considerably over the last several years in order to counter this deforestation and associated GHG emissions, while also attempting to quantify the value of services provided by forests and natural resources and provide mechanisms for delivering payments for successful management of these services. Among these efforts is an emerging Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) framework that seeks to provide financial incentives to support forest conservation and associated emission reductions, while also incorporating considerations of larger socioeconomic and other “co-benefits” that include biodiversity conservation, improved livelihoods, gender equity and consideration of marginalized populations.
The Lowering Emissions in Asia’s Forests (LEAF) program is a 5 year program of the United States Agency for International Development/Regional Development Mission for Asia (USAID/RDMA) that complements the efforts of numerous other donor organizations, private sector investors, and non-government organizations (NGOs) who are working to develop REDD+ capacity and operational frameworks in parallel with ongoing United National Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations that seek to define an effective and equitable REDD+ mechanism.
The goal of LEAF program is to achieve meaningful, sustained reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from Asia’s forestry/land use sector.
The Program employs a regional approach to meet this goal, with plans to implement field demonstration activities in six countries (Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea (PNG), and Malaysia)
To meet the objective of Demonstrating innovation in sustainable land management, the Land-based Emission Reduction Plans (LERP) has been introduced as the intervention product of SNV REDD+ programme.
LERP provide a blueprint of how to meetthe goals of economic development, while lowering carbon emissions within a chosen administrative area. LERP will explore different options requiring detailed spatial and socio-economic analysis at the land use planning unit. Based on this analysis, a suite of policies and measures can be proposed and introduced; for example, influencing forestry planning and management; alternative and improved agricultural practices; working with the local communities on reduced biomass energy sources, such as biogas; or reduced impact logging in commercial forestry. LERP provide a comprehensive approach to sustainable economic development and emission reduction.
LEAF programme in Laos will pilot LERP in Houaphan Province. These areas are examples of the conflict between forest land and agriculture expansion or infrastructure development. The land-based emission reduction approach will be applied for land use planning at the district level as the way to integrated the planning and implementation of REDD+ pilot activities at sub-national level. The LERP model will be spatially based on assessment of possibilities to reduce land-based emissions though alternative land use plans, opportunity cost analysis and results from other studies such as: exploring historical patterns and drivers of deforestation using socio economic assessments, identifying conflicts and pressures on forest development as well as carbon estimation and producing reference emission levels. The outcome of LERP will provide options for an MRV framework at the sub-national level.
Assignment Objectives:
The main objectives of this assignment is to create high quality historical forest status maps based on multi dates remote sensing data for ViengXai and Xam-Tai district from Houaphan Province, Laos PDR.
Timeframe:
The work needs to be completed in 40 days from the date of contract
Consultant team profile:
Consultant team should have well-established experience in remote sensing analysis and experience working on forest cover mapping for Laos. Familiarity with relevant methodologies for carbon accounting and REDD projects is an asset.
How to Apply:
Interested applicants should submit an application letter with an up-to-date Curriculum Vitae and copies of relevant certificates byFriday 26, August 2011 to: SNV Netherlands Development Organisation, PO Box 9781, Nongbone Road, Vientiane Capital. Email applications: laosjobs@snvworld.org.
- Detailed proposal including timeline and cost breakdown. Both timeline and costs should be broken into activity areas as described above in section 3. Costs should be further broken down into staff time and other expenses.
- An overview of images available and that will be used for analysis (type, date, quality).
Please note that a description of more than one option is welcome in a proposal. SNV recognizes that there will sometimes be trade-offs between cost, quality, and time. Applications are welcome to include more than one potential option (e.g. providing alternate costs / scenarios for using different types of RS imagery).
All application documents will be treated confidentially and only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
