Forests are an essential component of the climate challenge. Strategies to expand their area and carbon storage capacity are referred to as natural climate solutions. Yet whether reforestation is natural and whether these actions can have an impact on climate remains open. The success of these strategies dependent on a precise definition of terms and the ability to monitor nationally determined contributions in a transparent and effective manner.

I will address three related themes:

• First, better historical information about forests in the period preceding the remote sensing era is essential for knowledge and also for environmental justice.
• Second, the definition of forest cover is famously ambiguous, and objective definitions are now emerging, based on high-resolution imagery, but not without ethical challenges.
• Third, forest is more than a layer of leaves and technology to measure forest biomass from space will be discussed.
  Together these themes suggest the possibility of establishing a global monitoring system for forest biomass, and I will conclude by emphasizing the crucial need for ground data for the validation of these future forest observatories.

Jérôme Chave studies the functioning of tropical forests, including the ecology of tree communities and the contribution of tropical forests to the carbon cycle. His current research interests include biodiversity science, ecosystem modelling, and plant biogeography in the Amazon.

He is the director of the “Evolution and Biological Diversity” laboratory in Toulouse. He is the scientific and technical manager of the Laboratory of Excellence CEBA- “Centre for the study of the Amazonian Biodiversity”, and scientific director of the Station de Recherche en Écologie des Nouragues (French Guyana).

This event will be held in the lecture theatre in the School of Geography and the Environment. However, it will also be streamed live.

We are putting together a seminar series in collaboration with the Maison Française d’Oxford, aiming to strengthen Franco-British research collaborations for the Biodiversity Network. Please join us to welcome our French collaborators.