Framework Convention on Climate Change:
Article 1.7. “Reservoir” means a component or components of the climate system where a greenhouse gas or a precursor of a greenhouse gas is stored
Article 1.8 “Sink” means any process, activity or mechanism which removes a greenhouse gas, an aerosol or a precursor of a greenhouse gas from the athmosphere
Article 2. The ultimate objective of this Convention and any related legal instruments that the conference of the Parties may adopt is to achieve, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Convention, stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the athmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Such a level should be achieved within a time frame sufficent to allow ecosystems to adpat naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic develoment to proceeed in a sustainable manner.
Article 3.3 The Parties should take precautionary measures to anticipate, prevent or minimize the causes of climate change ... Efforts to address climate change may be carried out cooperatively by interested Parties.
Article 4.1 All Parties, taking into account their common but differentiated responsiblities and their specific national and regional development priorities, objectives and circumstances, shall: a) Develop, periodically uopdate, publish and make available to the Conference of the Parties, in accordance with Article 12, national inventories of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of all greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol, using comparable methodologies to be agreed upon by the Conference of the Parties... c) Promote and cooperate in the development, application and diffusion, including transfer of technologies, practices and processes that control, reduce or prevent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse effect gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol in all relevant sectors, including ... forestry ... d) promote sustainable management, and promote and cooperate in the conservation and enhacement, as appropriate, of sinks and reservoirs of all greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol, including ... forests.
Kyoto Protocol:
Article 2,ii Protection and anhacement of sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases ... promotion of sustainable forest management practices, afforestation and reforestation.
Article 3, 3. The net changes in greenhouse gas emissions by sources and removals by sinks resulting from direct human-induced land-use change and forestry activities, limited to afforestation, reforestation and deforestation since 1990, measured as verifiable changes in carbos stocks in each commitment period, shall be used to meet the commitments under this Article of each Party included in Annex I. The greenhouse gas emissions by sources and removals by sinks associated with those activities shall be reported in a transparent and verifiable manner and reviewed in accordance with Articles 7 and 8.
Article 3,4. Prior to the first session of the conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parety of this Protocol, each Party included in Annex I shall provide, for consideration by the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice, data to establish its level of carbon stocks in 1990 and to enable an estimate to be made of its changes in carbon stocks in subsequent years. The Conference of the Parties, serving as the meeting of the Parties of this Protocol shall, at its first session or as soon as practicable thereafter, decide upon modalities, rules and guidelines as to how, and which, additional human-induced activities related to changes in greenhouse gas emissions by sources and removals by sinks in the agricultural soils and the land-use change and forestry cathegories shall be added to, or substracted from, the assigned amount for Parties, included in Annex I,
Article 3,7. ... Those Parties included in Annex I for whom land-use change in forestry constituted a net source of greenhouse gas emissions in 1990 shall include in their 1990 emissions base year of perior the aggregate anthropogenic carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by sources minus removals by sinks in 1990 from land-use change for the purposes of calculating their assigned amount.