The concept of World Forest Survey is under development at FAO. Mr. Peter Holmgren, Director, CCB Project, FAO Rome presented the current thinking of FAO about World Forest Survey. This chapter briefly describes various aspects of his presentation. The full text of his presentation is in Annexes with this document.
The collection, compilation and synthesis of the information for FRA 2000 have indicated large gaps and incompatibility in information across time and space within and among the countries. Most of the information does not have necessary contextual support to understand its dynamics. Further, only about 19 percent of the developing countries conduct repeated national forest inventories (NFI) for which time series information is available. Therefore, international and regional policy decisions on forests are being made on relatively less precise and more superficial information. The FAO has decided to develop a World Forest Survey (WFS) to fill this gap and develop necessary capacities of forestry institutions for such forest assessments, knowledge management and policy development in many countries. Mr. Peter Holmgren, FAO presented the concept and allied aspects of WFS including lessons learnt though the pilot study conducted in Thailand. This chapter provides an overview of his presentation.
The WFS will utilize in-situ observations at a large number of systematically sampled plots of about 1kx1km size with known statistical representativity. The survey will include assessment of the biological properties and trends of forests, woodlands and trees outside forests; as well as socio-economic factors affecting the land use. The basic objectives of WFS is to generate qualitative forestry information for a broad range of subjects and to build capacity for national forest inventories, knowledge management an forest policy development. Implementation will rely on participation of national institutions and local people, and will include a large element of training and capacity building.
The WFS will develop a nested system of spatial grids at global, regional, national and if necessary at sub-national levels. It will utilize systematic sampling design that will be developed at national level in each country in order to (a) tie in to existing National Forest Inventories (NFI), and (b) vary the sampling intensity according to the size of the country. The sample plots will tentatively be of the same size globally, preliminarily set to 1 km2.
First sampling phase will distribute the sampling plots over the country. Depending on the characteristics of the country, existing NFI designs, existing map grids and logistical concerns, this may be done with different degrees of clustering. The result would be large scale maps that show the distribution of land use/land cover classes within each plot. The second sampling phase will determine which sample plots to be visited in the field after all plots have been stratified using the distribution of land use/land cover classes from the first phase. A pilot field survey has been carried out in Thailand in April 2000 and some are planned for additional countries. The findings of these studies will help to establish feasibility and utility of the approach as well as lead to modifications, if found necessary.
The implementation may involve (a) a verification and correction of the first phase mapping of the plot, (b) measurement and estimations of the current status and trends of forests, other wooded land and trees outside forests, (c) assessment of current landuse, recent changes in landuse, and factors significantly affecting current landuse and those having potential to affect and future management. The WFS may utilize a set of globally defined field variables, as well as a set of variables adjusted to the local (national/ regional) needs.
The World Forest Survey concept was met with great enthusiasm from the project countries but with skepticism as to the possibilities to implement it, and to provide funding. The workshop resolved that development of a WFS will require national expert consultations and pilot studies to carefully choose design and implementation and that the success of WFS will depend on active participation and its proven utility to forestry organization of the implementing countries.
