WATER AND CLIMATE SECTION
In coordination with the other sections in WMD, staff in this section focuses its work on monitoring water resources. Recent work focuses on building a basis for negotiation for Payments for Environmental Services.
Linkages with other Divisions within the Department of Forest allows this team to follow issues related to climate change and carbon sequestration and storage. REDD + is another mechanism being explored to support forest conservation in Bhutan. Among many forest management systems that are potential for REDD + implementation in the country, community forestry (CF) program could be one of the most relevant programs in the REDD + context in relation with the conservation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks and community forestry management group (CFMG) can benefit from carbon trade due to high success of community forestry in Bhutan. With the Bali action plan from COP13 on REDD +, Bhutan has the opportunity to gain from an international REDD + mechanism and will adopt a phased program of implementing REDD + in securing its ecological and economic benefits while being mindful of the safeguards in minimizing collateral damages of related policy and program externalities.
Functions:
- Support to the overall functions of the Division
- Research in collaboration with RNR research centre on watershed management practices, climate change and other environmental aspects pertaining to RNR sector.(lead role)
- Pilot studies on carbon sequestration and sink/stock enhancement.(lead role)
- Mainstreaming and updating watershed management data within a national watershed database.
- Education and awareness & capacity building on watershed management and provision of technical backstopping.
- Documentation, communication and dissemination of watershed knowledge, experiences, lessons learnt and information.
- Development of climate change action plan for RNR sector.(lead role)
