Regional sites 
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is developing an innovative forest carbon project in North Sulawesi. Loss of forests in Sulawesi, which are characterized by high levels of endemism, has been extensive. The proposed WCS project site represents one of the few remaining areas with sizable forest cover in relatively good condition. The WCS reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) project has the assurance of secure land tenure, which reduces risks and should facilitate alternative income options from a production forest concession, which is of increasing interest to timber companies. Community participation and development of benefit sharing mechanisms are important aspects of the project.
Hatfield is supporting this WSC REDD project through provision of technical services related to current land cover mapping and analysis with RapidEye, ALOS PALSAR, and other remote sensing data to provide information for the draft Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) REDD methodology for frontier deforestation and degradation. The improved accuracy of land cover will be combined with plot-based biomass data to provide an improved stratification of forest carbon stock across the landscape. The integration of different sensors will improve the capacity for monitoring according to VCS requirements.
Hatfield’s work is partly funded by the European Space Agency under Earth Observation Service for Forest Carbon Emissions (EO-FORCE) Project. (link)
