Modeling future deforestation and REDD+ in the Congo Basin: some lessons learnt

OCTF online seminar (via Zoom) followed by Q&A - all welcome

Speaker: Aline Mosnier, Scientific Director, FABLE Consortium, UN Sustainable Solutions Development Network

The REDD+ mechanism was designed to reward countries financially for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and enhancing carbon stocks in forests. REDD+ would not be appealing to countries with low historical deforestation and high forest cover, if they could not adjust their forest reference level  upwards to account for likely future development. However, it has been difficult for these countries to establish a credible adjustment, and to follow transparent, comparable, consistent, complete and accurate criteria. Aline will present different modeling approaches and results from projects spanning over 2010-2020 that aimed at supporting Congo Basin countries in the computation of their forest reference level. She will highlight the successes and difficulties encountered on the way, both technically from a modeling point of view, and institutional, and share some recommendations on how future modeling work could be more effective to help reduce deforestation in the region. 

Aline Mosnier is the Scientific Director for the FABLE (Food, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Land-use, and Energy) Pathways Consortium. She works with country teams to develop rigorous quantitative national pathways towards sustainable land use and food systems by 2050.

Prior to joining SDSN, Aline worked at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) where she contributed to the development of the global partial equilibrium model GLOBIOM. In particular, her work focused on international trade in agricultural products, indirect impacts of biofuel policies, climate change impacts on agriculture, and deforestation and forest degradation in the tropics. With teams from local research institutes, she has worked on the co-development of regional versions of GLOBIOM in the Congo Basin, Brazil and Indonesia. Finally, she has developed the FABLE calculator, a simplified country-Excel-based accounting tool on the food and land system.

Aline holds a PhD in Agricultural and Environment Economics from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences of Vienna and a Masters in Development Economics from CERDI-Université d’Auvergne of Clermont-Ferrand.