Monitoring and reporting carbon stocks and fluxes in Dutch forests

Global forests play an important role in the global carbon cycle.At this moment they absorb about 25% of the emission of carbon dioxide.This aspect has initiated research into the possibilities of enhancing and maintaining this role of global forests.Carbon sequestration in forests might be, also for the Netherlands, an option to compensate part of the carbon dioxide emissions.This paper describes the role of forests, gives a quantification of the present sink in Dutch and European forests and indicates for which compartments improvements of the reporting can be made.