In the past decades, deforestation and forest degradation accounted for about 20% of greenhouse gas emissions showing that the mitigation of global warming cannot be achieved without the implication of forest contributions in international agreements. At the 2007 Bali UNFCCC meeting (COP-13), an agreement was reached on “the urgent need to take further meaningful actions to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD)”. Since then, the idea has evolved to REDD+, which is more than just avoided deforestation. It is all measurable and verifiable reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation as well as sustainable management of forests, conservation of forest carbon stocks and enhancement of carbon stocks. REDD+ .has gained influential support from many international organizations including the World Bank, FAO, ITTO, GEF, UNDP, UNEP and the involvement of most of the UN countries. As a result the UN-REDD has been created in 2008 as a partnership to assist countries in addressing certain measures needed to effectively participate in the REDD mechanism. Sustainable management of forest ecosystems and REDD+ are crucially needed in all latitude to allow that forests contribute in the mitigation of climate change effects in our daily live.

 Our research aims at developing with nations, forest managers, private forest owners, national, regional and local forest Inventories scenarios and forest management models that will allow accounting the contribution of sustainable forest management and REDD in climate change mitigation and the carbon footprint.