Inventory practice: Including agroforestry in Nepal’s Forest Reference Level (FRL)

Nepal’s REDD Implementation Center (2017) adopted the following definition of forest for developing its FRL: Land with tree crown cover of more that 10 percent, in an area covering more than 0.5 ha, with minimum height of the trees to be 5 m at maturity and in-situ conditions. The land may consist either of closed forest formations where trees of multiple stories and undergrowth cover a high proportion of the ground, or of open forest formations with a continuous vegetation cover in which tree crown cover exceeds 10 percent. Young natural stands and all plantations established for forestry purposes which have yet to reach a crown density of 10 percent or tree height of 5 m are included under forest, as are areas normally forming part of the forest area which are temporarily unstocked as a result of human intervention or natural causes but which are expected to revert to forest. This includes forest nurseries and seed orchards that constitute an integral part of the forest; forest roads, cleared tracts, firebreaks and other small open areas within the forest; forest in national parks, nature reserves and other protected areas such as those of special environmental, scientific, historical, cultural or spiritual interest; windbreaks and shelterbelts of trees with an area of more than 0.5 ha and a width of more than 20 m. Lands predominantly used for agricultural practices are excluded.

Agroforestry was not explicitly mentioned in the FRL document, but agroforestry patches that fulfill the forest criteria were included in analysis, and forest-cover changes on patches above 2.25 hectares were reported in the FRL. The figure below shows an example of coffee agroforestry in Nuwakot, part of which was included as forest in the FRL dataset.

Source: Case study provided by Bashkar Karky (ICIMOD), published in Rosenstock et al. 2018