 It's wonderful to be here. This is a beautiful place. We take the boat to go to the forest and that boat journey is amazing. This is not an easy environment to work. The mosquitoes and all the different insects biting you all the time working with more than 30-35 degrees with 100% humidity carrying 15 kilos of machine. The IPCC has established beyond reasonable doubt this year in the new reports that climate change is happening and it's man-made. And that means for us here in CFOA that we are worried about how to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation because we know that this is responsible for more or less between 10 and 25% of the overall global greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon stored in forests plays an important role in climate change mitigation. Red plus, reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation encourages developing countries to safeguard their forests by putting a price on the carbon stored in them. To receive payments, countries need to prove they have a robust and transparent forest monitoring system. But a study found that only three of 99 developing countries were considered good at monitoring forest area change. There is no fixed approach to measuring the carbon stored in forests. Current methods involve time-consuming field work to measure trees in remote areas, destructive sampling and often unreliable equations. This can affect the accuracy of research and harm the ecosystems we want to protect. These factors also reduce the effectiveness of red plus and the carbon accounting. So the international research community has been called upon to develop better solutions for monitoring and measuring emissions. This year, scientists from the Centre for International Forestry Research, CFOA, teamed up with experts from the University of Wagingdon and the University of Göttingen to test a number of different technologies that could be used to revolutionise the monitoring of forest systems. Part of the work CFOA does under the Global Comparative Study for Red Plus, this team spent a month in a peat swamp in Kalimantan, Indonesia experimenting with a mosaic of approaches. We are trying to develop instruments which are useful for the measurement of tropical forest structure, deforestation, degradation and then regrowth. This also opens up a new innovation for scientists working at the remote sensing and the forestry field because this is the first time where we are going to have multi-scale information on a forest plot. The team took satellite images of the forest, then they picked the individual plots, marked them out and applied each of the following processes, lidar scans, unmanned aerial flight mapping and spectrometry. Then they partnered with locals to cut down a tree in each plot and repeated the process once more. This was done in sites where deforestation was already planned. In doing so they were able to compare the data before and after the cutting, showing the effect even minor deforestation can have whilst allowing them to make accurate carbon assessments. Lidar scanners were designed to scan buildings, not forests, but they are promising for measuring forest carbon stocks. They produce a full digital scene of an area which accurately models the volume of individual trees. It's a laser scanner which allow us to scan in a three-dimensional area. This laser emits a pulse that is a beam out of the laser and then hits an object. Then the beam goes back. Inside the machine it locates each of these beams, goes back and then it can build a 3D scenario of the area. Why we are interested to capture a three-dimensional structure of the trees is in a 2D view, it's a flat surface where we cannot see the volume. So we cannot estimate how much wood volume we have, for example, or biomass of a tree. In a funny way we can just imagine a flat picture of myself in a front view. It doesn't allow to see how big is my belly, how fat or slim could be. In contrast, in a 3D view, we can see not only one surface, but we can see all around, so we can detect all the profiles and get all the shape of the trees. By attaching special cameras to a radio-controlled helicopter, the team also produced high-definition aerial images of the area. When these pictures are combined with hyperspectral data, models can be made of the forest plots. Within 24 hours it's possible to have data on the biomass and health of the forest. With these cameras we are taking maps of the jungle and the forest, and from the photos we can actually produce also a 3D model of the forest canopy shapes. So basically we get the tree height and also sizes of the trees. From hyperspectral data we will get information about biochemistry of the leaves. So we have been measuring leaf reflectance and transmittance. We are also measuring similar measurements of the barks of the trees and of course understory, vegetation and whatever soil and dead leaves there are. These unmanned aerial vehicles are providing a very powerful tool to do a controlled scientific study. This has never been possible with previous technologies of real airplane-based sensors or even satellite data. This should allow us to do our modelling way more accurately than has been done before. Tree ring samples were taken to determine the age of the trees, to collect biomass data and to get a picture of past climate variations. The rings are impacted by factors such as rain, temperature and carbon concentration. This information shows us the history of each individual tree and how the surrounding ecosystem has changed over the years. This method is a non-destructive way of determining how much carbon is stored. To complete the process, the team manually determined the biomass of the forest plots before and after felling, from measuring tree diameter and height. This is a classic approach and was used to verify the data received from the various pieces of equipment. First we select the trees that will be cut down by the locals and after we select these trees and then we establish the plots following the estimated directions of the felling. We have to cut down the trees and we have to measure all stem, branches and twigs and leaves to get the total biomass. So for the stems and large branches we will measure the volume and for the rest we will weight it directly in the field and in the end we will get the total biomass stored in each tree. This research could lead to improved approaches to monitoring which is essential for countries to implement Red Plus. We are far from direct applications of these methods but innovations such as this can increase the feasibility and reliability of future needs for measuring and reporting forest carbon stocks. Technology is one of the main drivers of science and this equipment can provide a complete picture of forest structure, biomass and diversity. Research such as this becomes more and more important as we approach 2015 and a long awaited new climate agreement.