Consultancy for Improvement of Carbon Stock Estimates and Emission Factor Calculation for Developing Interim FRLs

Consultancy: Improvement of carbon stock estimates and emission factor calculation for developing interim FRLs for Lam Dong Province

The USAID Lowering Emissions in Asia's Forests (USAID LEAF) program is a 5 year program of the United States Agency for International Development/Regional Development Mission for Asia (USAID/RDMA) that complements the efforts of numerous other donor organizations, private sector investors, and non-government organizations (NGOs) who are working to develop REDD+ capacity and operational frameworks in parallel with on-going United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations that seek to define an effective and equitable REDD+ mechanism.

The LEAF project in Vietnam has been approved by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in Decision No. 1006/QD-BNN-HTQT dated on May 4th, 2012 which assigned VNFOREST as the project owner and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) of Nghe An and Lam Dong provinces, along with VNFOREST as co-implementers. The Netherlands Development Organisation - SNV; Winrock International, Climate Focus and RECOFTC are the agencies coordinating the project implementation. The LEAF project will provide support for the successful implementation of the National REDD+ Action Program (NRAP) of Vietnam, which was approved by the Prime Minister (Decision 799/QD-TTg dated on 27th June 2012).

The program has four components. In the framework of Component 1, Vietnam LEAF will support pilot initiatives to reduce forest and land use emission through development of a Provincial REDD+ Action Plans (PRAP) for Lam Dong province. Two important components of this support include the development of: 1) Forest Reference Levels (FRLs) and (2) a Forest Monitoring System (FMS). Precise and accurate assessment of forest biomass and forest carbon stocks, and the calculation of emission factors are key requirements for establishing a robust FRL accurately.

LEAF Vietnam is now seeking an experienced consultant or group of consultant who has significant experience of working on forest inventory, forest monitoring systems, development of FRLs, and an in-depth knowledge on forestry statistic and skills of programming to conduct this task including collecting the required raw data, maps and carrying out a carbon estimate of the identified sample plot to reduce uncertainty levels of certain land classes.

The main objective is to collate and analyse additional raw data from NFIMAP Cycle IV sample plots from provinces neighbouring Lam Dong and sample plots of National Forest Inventory and Statistic Program 2013 - 2016 in Lam Dong province; re-calculate carbon stocks of all land classes and resulting uncertainty levels.

Details see attached ToR in both English and Vietnamese.

Time frame: from June to August 2014.

Consultant or group of consultants must provide: 1) CVs or/and Company profiles, 2) an outline of the proposed methodology to be used (no longer than 2 pages) 3) a timeline of the key steps to be undertaken during the consultancy (no longer than 1 page) and 4) proposed format of the delivered datasets in MS Excel.

Application deadline is the 6th of June, 2014 with applications to be sent to: Ms. Vu Thi Kieu Phuc, Email: [email protected]