Preface

An accurate inventory of forest and tree resources is essential for formulating sound strategies for forestry development. Accurate, up-to-date information on forest cover and growing stock of forests and trees are basic ingredients for planning and policy development.

Tree resources outside continuous forest areas or trees outside forests (TOF) can cover considerable areas. They occur as small woodlots and block plantations, along linear features (e.g. roads, canals) or are found scattered on farmlands, homesteads, community lands and in urban areas. Traditionally, TOF were not inventoried and as a result, quantitative information about TOF is scarce. However, interest in TOF has increased worldwide. Besides providing support to subsistence economies, these trees form a substantial source of raw materials for forest industries. In its Forest Resource Assessment 2000, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations concluded that information on TOF remains fragmented, diffuse, sometimes empirical and often sectoral.

The Forest Survey of India (FSI) has been conducting TOF assessments since the early 1990s. Due to its expertise in this field, FSI is in the position to take the lead in Asia offering training on inventory methods of TOF to professionals. It is in this context that FSI has prepared this "Training Manual on Inventory of TOF".

The manual introduces several aspects of TOF inventories, to provide readers with a comprehensive overview of the tools needed to conduct an inventory. It provides insights into survey methods, describes procedures for data collection, data analysis, and formats for recording data during field surveys. Case studies from various countries are used to illustrate different inventory methods. The emphasis is on practical and conventional methodologies.

The authors wish to express their sincere gratitude to FAO for giving FSI the opportunity to prepare this training manual. Secretarial assistance was provided by Ms. Pratima Saini, Mr. I. H. Rizvi and Mr. Dinesh Gupta is also acknowledged. Lastly, the authors are grateful to the Ministry of Environment & Forests (Govt. of India), New Delhi for their support and encouragement.

J. K. Rawat
S. Dasgupta
Rajesh Kumar
Anoop Kumar
K.V.S. Chauhan

Dehradun
April 15, 2002