National Forest Monitoring System (NFMS) “https://www.nfmspak.org” comprises of a set standard protocol, procedures and guidelines for monitoring and measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) of REDD+ results. NFMS has been designed to estimate forest-related GHG emissions and removals following UNFCCC guidelines. It is aimed at monitoring of REDD+ results in accordance with the national circumstances. Also, the NFMS is to monitor progress towards sustainable forests management.

The NFMS has the following two main functions:

1. Monitoring: is primarily a domestic tool to allow Pakistan to assess a broad range of forest information, including the REDD+ activities.
2. Measuring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) function has three main components, or ‘pillars’:
   • (a) Satellite land monitoring system (SLMS) for assessment of forest area change.
   • (b) National forest inventory (NFI) for estimation of forest carbon stock.
   • (c) National greenhouse gas inventory (GHG-I).

The key objectives of the NFMS are as follows:

1. National forestry data integration, synchronisation and harmonisation.
2. Adopt advanced tools and techniques of forest monitoring and change assessment.
3. Scientifically reliable and transparently measure forest carbon stocks and emissions.
4. Regularly assess forest health and ecosystem benefits.
5. Assess contribution of mega forestry initiatives such as 10BTTP for climate change mitigation and green agenda.
6. Support provincial forestry departments with the modern tools for digital forest mapping and inventorying.

NFMS has been designed based on advanced tools and techniques of forest measurements and monitoring customized in national context and keeping in view that it uses “Free and Open Source” datasets and software’s for measurement and monitoring of forests on sustained basis.

The system also involves a national monitoring web portal with dedicated server hosted at Global Climate Change Impact Studies Centre (GCISC) to act as the centralized national database. This portal is aimed to facilitate data integration at the national level and for international reporting and preparation of GHG inventory. It is planned to be linked to sub-national forest monitoring web portals to be hosted by the forest departments in all provinces and territories for respective forestry data generation and management.

For strengthening and operationalization of forest monitoring systems, capacities of officials of forestry departments in provinces and territories have been built in satellite-based forest cover monitoring, field inventory and other relevant aspects together with provisioning of latest forest inventory and monitoring equipment, including Remote Sensing Drones for regular acquisition of high quality geo-spatial data of selected forestry sites and monitoring of afforestation/reforestation activities.