For governments and jurisdictions
A Fuller Account of Your Forests’ Climate Value
A methane sink measured only recently means standing forests do more for the climate than national inventories currently capture. SelvaFlux works with governments and climate funders to measure that uptake in a country’s own forests, for inventory completeness and a stronger case for protection.
The finding
A Climate Service the Accounts Miss
In 2024, research published in Nature showed that microbes living in tree bark remove methane from the atmosphere, a global sink on the order of 24.6 to 49.9 Tgof methane per year and strongest in tropical forests. SelvaFlux’s founder is a co-author on that paper. In tropical forest the uptake is on the order of 0.45 tCO₂e per hectare per year on the 100-year basis that inventories use (GWP100), and about 2.1 tCO₂e per hectare per year in near-term warming terms (GWP*, 20-year), where short-lived methane weighs most.
This sink is real and measurable, and it is missing from the standard forest-carbon accounts that jurisdictions rely on, so a country’s forests do more climate work than its inventory shows.
What we do
We Measure It, in Partnership
SelvaFlux works with national and subnational governments to quantify this sink within their own forests. We design and run measurement campaigns alongside national forest institutions, deliver a country-specific assessment with quantified uncertainty, build local measurement capacity, and contribute the underlying methods to the open scientific record.
These programs are delivered as funder-supported partnerships, bringing together a host government, its forest research institutions, and climate funders with a mandate on methane and forests. The result is a clearer picture of what a nation’s forests are worth to the climate, and a stronger evidentiary basis for keeping them standing.
How it works
From Partnership to Reporting
Convene
We bring together a host government, its national forest institutions, and a climate funder around a shared measurement program.
Quantify
Field campaigns on existing national forest-inventory plots produce country-specific methane uptake data with quantified uncertainty.
Strengthen
Governments gain local measurement capacity and a documented, repeatable method that strengthens their forest reporting and the case for protection.
Scope and limits
Bark methane uptake is a natural service the forest already provides. It is reportable for completeness in a national greenhouse-gas inventory, and it makes standing forests more valuable on paper. It is not a carbon credit, an offset, or an NDC target credit, and it does not license continued emissions. The same science is moving into crediting methodologies for project developers (Gold Standard NMC 187, and a Verra module, M0423, on hold pending a Q1 2027 review), a separate track from the national-inventory use described here. Its value is a fuller account of why these forests are worth keeping standing.
Get in touch
Engaging with Governments and Climate Funders Now
To discuss a national or subnational measurement partnership, get in touch. This describes a partnership model we are developing; it is forward-looking and does not represent existing government engagements.