FORESTS NEWS

Louis Verchot is CIFOR’s Director of Environment Research. He leads the biophysical research at CIFOR and ensures that ecosystem research contributes to all areas of CIFOR’s work. He also leads CIFOR’s climate change team working specifically on mitigation actions like REDD+, climate change adaptation, bioenergy, and low emissions development. This work aims to produce technical improvements and methods for better climate change adaptation and mitigation, and supports equitable development by providing evidence to stakeholders and raises awareness so that the interests of rural land users are considered. The program also improves capacity and imparts new skills to national partners so that they use these new skills to inform policy processes to ensure policy is built on evidence, knowledge and data. Dr. Verchot’s research focuses on greenhouse gas production in soils and understanding how land use and land-use change affect the atmosphere. This work contributes to assessing the impact of land management decisions and is applied in national greenhouse gas inventories and in measurement and reporting systems for REDD+. Dr. Verchot is a regular contributor to the IPCC Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. He has also supported the development of methods for the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA).