Monitoring the Multiple Functions of Tropical Rainforest on a National Scale: An Overview From Papua New Guinea

National Forest Inventory (NFI) protocols have traditionally been designed to assess land coverage and the production value of forest. We propose that this approach needs to evolve toward multipurpose resource survey with broader scope, including data on plant and animal biodiversity, forest carbon pools, and carbon sequestration, given the role of forests in addressing climate change. New Guinea hosts the third largest tropical rainforest in the world and is a globally recognized center of biological diversity and endemism. Here, we report on the NFI by the Government of Papua New Guinea (PNG); designed to assess and monitor the country’s forests for multiple parameters including timber and nontimber resources, greenhouse gases sequestration and storage, and biodiversity. Stratified sampling with clusters of plots was applied to collect quantitative data on a wide range of variables including soil, tree and nontree species as well as birds and three types of insects: ants, geometrid moths, and fruit flies. In total 43 cluster sites, each with multiple plots were assessed. These partial results, from the projected total of 200 clusters, have demonstrated the feasibility and usefulness of the expanded approach to national forest surveys. They contributed to the Biennial Update Report on climate change for PNG and the formation of climate change policies such as the National Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation+ Strategy and the developments of PNG’s Forest Reference Level, and the enhanced (second) Nationally Determined Contributions for PNG. They will also inform the biodiversity conservation and forestry policies in the future.