A Forest Reference Emission Level (FREL) or Forest Reference Level (FRL) is one of the four elements that countries need to develop in order to participate in REDD+. The UNFCCC has defined FREL/FRLs as benchmarks for assessing a country’s performance in implementing REDD+ activities and mitigating climate change through actions related to their forests. Accordingly, a workshop was organized by the Sri Lanka UN REDD Programme from 3-4 August 2015, to introduce the topic of FRLs, and initiate the process of constructing a FRL for Sri Lanka. The workshop covered the topics of forest definition, scope, scale, activity data, emission factors and FRL construction methodologies.

The workshop involved detailed discussions on the national circumstances of Sri Lanka, such as data availability, monitoring capacity, historical trends of greenhouse gas emissions, and political and socio-economic context.  These factors will be important in determining the likely projections of emissions into the future, the need to adjust these projections to take account of country context, and which methodologies will be most effective for measuring emissions

A total of 16 participants attended the workshop, from the Forest Department, Wildlife Conservation Department, Climate Change Secretariat, Central Environment Authority, University of Peradiniya, University of Sri Jayewardene Pure, and University of Colombo.