K. Janz
Klaus Janz is Senior Forestry Officer, Resources Appraisal and Monitoring, FAO Forestry Department.
FAO's 1990 global forest resources assessment for the tropical and industrialized countries has been completed. The remaining gap, i.e. the non-tropical developing countries, will soon tee filled. This is the time to ask a number of questions. What has been achieved? Who is benefiting from the work done and which of the lessons learned can be applied to future assessments?
As a starting point, it may be useful to make some general remarks on the types of output and the target beneficiaries of global forest resources assessments. The published results in the form of statistics and maps are an obvious output. Beyond this, there is a less visible output relating to the process of forest resource assessment. It is the experience gained within countries in the various phases of data collection and analysis, i.e. the building or strengthening of the capacity of countries (particularly developing countries) to gather the information needed for their own forest sector planning and monitoring. The 1990 assessment has been working in this direction, partly in regional workshops in which the methodology for interpreting satellite data is tested and disseminated and partly through an intensive dialogue regarding the collection of source information.
Thus, the beneficiaries of global forest resources assessments include those using the published results as well as those profiting from the process. With regard to the published results, it must be kept in mind that they are intended for specific uses and users at the international level (discussed later in this article). Here it may suffice to clarify that the results of global assessments are useful for national planning only to the extent that knowledge about the forest situation of other countries influences national strategies. Forest inventories for national and local forestry planning are undertaken and will continue to be undertaken by countries themselves, with or without external technical or financial assistance.
The assessment for the developing countries has primarily produced information about the area of forest as of 1990 and the change since 1980. This information is available by countries and ecofloristic zones. The information is presented with simple breakdowns related to the type and quality of the forest.
For the industrialized countries, the assessment has produced state and change information that is not exactly attributable to a given year or period. On the other hand, the information covers a much wider array of topics such as area by age class, ownership and management status; growing stock; annual growth; and annual felling. For the developing countries the focus has been on the assessment of area change, while in the industrialized countries it has been on information related to the structure and use of the forest. All this is concerned with information to be used at the international level. The smallest reporting unit is the country; thus, the resolution is not sufficient for use on the national level, where more detail is needed.
The assessment for developing countries has also produced a fairly good picture of what information is available on the national level. This reveals that only a small number of developing countries has sufficient information for the efficient planning of national forestry and land-use programmer.
An important dimension of the forest resources assessment is the development of national capabilities in the interpretation of high-resolution satellite images. This aspect has been a partial goal from the outset and is being widened in the planning of the next round of global assessments. It is in line with important directives given by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. In Agenda 21, Programme area D of Chapter 11, Combating deforestation, is entitled "Establishing and/or strengthening capacities for the planning, assessment and systematic observations of forests and related programmes...". In this programme area, assessment and systematic observations are clearly put in the contexts of long-term planning, evaluating effects of national capacity-building and rectifying inadequacies. It is noted, furthermore, that country capacity-building is an aspect of forest resources management, conservation and development that is often neglected - a situation that needs to be rectified.
In the developing countries, deforestation has continued and even accelerated
As additional donor support was attracted, the objectives of the 1990 assessment for developing countries were deepened and widened from a modest start in 1989. In line with this, even the methodology evolved during the process: in particular, the possibilities for change assessment improved. As a result, base information from a variety of sources and from different dates has been successfully used to give a global picture attributable to a specific year or period. A particularly interesting result of new approaches developed is a "change matrix", produced with the help of multi date satellite information, which roughly describes the direction of changes in land cover type. The technique used is to overlay high-resolution satellite images from two different dates on which a land classification has been carried out for a large number of grid points. The changes in land category are shown in the change matrix. The satellite data used make up a representative sample of the tropical zone. The information is a genuinely new contribution to the understanding of the deforestation process. Moreover, it also contains some quantification of degradation, deduced from the frequency of change from high- to low-density forest or from solid blocks of forest to a fragmented pattern.
At the time of writing, the analysis of the assessment results has only just started. However, a number of observations can be made. The forest resources of the industrialized countries are increasing slightly if measured in area terms, and substantially if measured in volume terms. As evidenced by Korotkov and Peck, this does not necessarily mean that other characteristics of the forests also have improved. Forestry decision-makers will need to address the question of how far the increase of growing stock - which has been remarkable in some areas - should be allowed to continue, and how to influence the process.
In tropical countries, interest has been focused on the global deforestation rate. For the decade 1980-1990 this has been estimated at 15.4 million ha per year while the previous estimate, which described the situation around 1980, was 11.4 million ha per year. Even taking into account the possibility of underestimation in the previous assessment, it is clear that the rate of deforestation has accelerated with respect to the already alarming previous figure. Particularly significant for a better understanding of the situation is an examination of the data on the remaining forest areas and deforestation rates in different ecological zones as well as on population density and growth. Such an analysis reveals that, in the tropical lowland rain forest zone, forest still covers 76 percent of the land area on average (less in Asia). In these zones, population density and growth as well as the deforestation rate are below average for the tropical countries. The highest deforestation rates are found in upland formations (800 m or more above sea level); there, the remaining forest area covers only 29 percent of the land area. These areas have a relatively high population density and growth.
Forest resources assessment is evolving into a combination of ground-level analysis and remote sensing
The possibility of linking deforestation with ecological zones and population density deserves detailed analysis, since it contributes to the understanding of the process, including the driving forces behind it. The results of such analyses will be useful for the proper focusing of development policies. The quantitative knowledge of relations between different forest formations with regard to deforestation may also eventually influence the public debate which has been concentrating in a rather one-sided manner on the tropical rain forest.
With regard to the important issue of information status, the assessment has shown that, while 86 of a total of 104 tropical countries could provide information on forest area nationwide, the information dates from after 1980 in only 41 and nationwide information on growing stock is available in only 14 of these countries. This is an indication that very few tropical countries have the information needed for an efficient planning of national forestry and land use programmer. This has no doubt influenced the FAO Committee on Forestry's view that the Organization's future global forest assessment programme should contain a strong element of country capacity-building.
The 1990 forest resources assessment is global and intended for uses and users at the international level. In the first years of FAO's existence, the "World Forest Inventory" was a major issue on the agenda of the FAO Conference, the Organization's highest decision-making body. The lead idea in these years was a continuous observation of the wood production capacity of forests. The background was an increasing demand for industrial wood and a fear that the forests could be overexploited. It was thought that repeated inventories could be the instrument with which change could be detected and that the knowledge of changes would be used to formulate sound directives for national forest policies. Experience has shown that repeated inventories were not good enough for change detection or, in particular, with regard to changes in productive capacity. Special methods for the identification of change in forest area were developed for the global assessments of 1980 and 1990 but they still do not cover changes in productive capacity.
Recently, the international community has become more concerned about deforestation and the degradation of forests in developing countries. This issue dominated the assessments of 1980 and 1990 for those countries. At the same time, awareness was growing in the industrialized countries with respect to two different developments: an increasing resource base in the majority of countries; and the potential impact of air pollution on the health of forests. The former influenced the assessment for the group of countries concerned, while the latter became the subject of special international observation efforts, separate from the global forest resources assessments [Ed. note: see article by Kandler].
The uses and users of the information collected are not easily identified; however, three main user groups may be distinguished:
Planners and decision-makers in forestry and related development sectors.
This group comprises planners working at the national level - for instance, those who need information on production, consumption and international trade and markets of wood products for the planning of their national forestry sector; and planners working with international organizations as well as multilateral and bilateral agencies involved in development cooperation. International planners require accuracy when treating major parameters, e.g. the subregional level data (the whole tropical world consists of 13 subregions). Reporting should be by country, although the objective is not to provide information with sufficient accuracy for national planning.
The scientific community of universities and national and international research teams. The scientific community's needs for forest resources information are principally related first to the supply potential in a wide sense, i.e. to what extent forests and related resources can meet the needs of people sustainably; and, second, to the dynamic processes such as deforestation and forest degradation as well as the impact they may have on climate change and biodiversity and the driving forces behind them. The scientific community also has a role as intermediary between the producers of base information and other users who need "digested" information. It is also involved in the development of assessment methods.
The public at large. The need here is to raise awareness and inform people as objectively as possible on the state and change of forest and related resources.
This can be done through the media and all forms of education, particularly environmental education in primary and secondary schools. Public opinion, whether or not it is based on correct information, influences politicians and is therefore important. An organization such as FAO can gather information and disseminate it to a rather limited audience but it has no control of the information flow to the public at large. This flow is channelled through a complicated and highly variable network of intermediaries who follow their own rules and who may have vested interests, and the correct and unbiased interpretation of source information does not necessarily take priority.
In any case, we can observe that the information that reaches the public at large is at times distorted. There is a need to consider how FAO's information activities could be made more effective in reaching this group of intermediaries.
The Forest Resources Assessment 1990 gives a fairly good, and in any case the best ever, description of the present forest area and of the changes in forest area between 1980 and 1990. Such information, however, is not sufficient to provide answers to the questions being raised at the international level concerning how well the forests fulfil their various functions and, in particular, how and why their ability to do so is changing The quality of forest resources is made up by a complex set of factors, the changes of which cannot be described with a single indicator (such as deforestation), but only factor by factor. For example, even after severe degradation (i.e. loss of most of the biomass) a piece of land may still be classified as forest. It adds to the complexity that a certain change may have a positive effect on one function and a negative effect on another. An example is a monoculture plantation of fast-growing species which produces valuable industrial wood and stores, in average over a rotation, a large quantity of carbon. However, depending on the previous type of vegetation and size of the area planted, these factors may imply a loss of biodiversity.
Cooperation is required from users and from the scientific world to help identify relevant factors and advise on methods to describe them in the context of a global forest assessment. Work has been initiated on components related to biomass, biodiversity and soils. Thanks to the generous cooperation of a number of scientists, the report of the 1990 assessment contains sections that show what can be achieved with the tools and means currently available. Attempts are being made to incorporate a more specific and direct assessment of information related to these issues.
The strengthening of national capacity for forest resources assessment, particularly in the area of remote sensing analysis, must be a priority for development assistance
The FAO programme in global forest resources assessment is, and will continue to be, shaped by input from many sources, particularly: recommendations given by the Organization's governing bodies; the spirit and wording of Agenda 21; lessons learned during the 1990 assessment; recommendations from expert meetings and reviews concerning the 1990 assessment; and general pressure from the public debate as received through the media and the scientific community. The objectives and methods of the 1990 assessment have been found to be basically sound, but there is clearly a need to increase emphasis on the building and strengthening of national capacity and on identifying and incorporating new parameters relevant to global development and environmental issues.
In the light of the above, FAO intends to follow a four-pronged approach in its forest resources assessment programme:
i) Compiling and analyzing forest resources data available at the national level and reporting to the world community on a regular and comparable basis. The present project has built up the Forest Resources Information System (FORIS) and a model which can serve as the basic tools for this component. Low-resolution satellite data will be used to fill gaps and to validate country data.ii) The building and strengthening of national capacity to conduct surveys and studies for effective planning and follow-up of national forest resources development; and to achieve a gradual improvement in the quality and relevance of national information for its possible use at the global level.
iii) The assessment of the state and change of forest resources, using a representative sample of high-resolution remote sensing data in cooperation with the member countries concerned. For this purpose there is the new methodology of the 1990 project [Ed note: see article by Singh, p. 10]. A lack of systematic studies on the ground to support the interpretation of satellite data is a problem in this context. Therefore, the expertise and capacity of the member countries are essential ingredients of this component.
iv) The further identification of parameters that are relevant to environmental issues such as biomass, biodiversity, land degradation and the development of methods and institutional arrangements to integrate them into forest assessments. This issue is being approached in close cooperation with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) within the framework of the UN system's Earthwatch programme.
The question has been raised as to whether there is a risk that widening the scope of global forest resources assessments to include environmental aspects, national capacity-building and various studies will dilute our ability to achieve the central task of providing up-to-date, relevant and reliable forest resources information.
Basically, the core activity within this programme should be to collect, analyse, interpret and disseminate relevant information. This implies that FAO must be very alert to changing needs and must adapt the set of assessed parameters accordingly. As in the past, the trend in forest resource assessment will be towards increasing complexity, and this will require a combination of more efficient methods and appropriate resources. Methodological advances will be of use in all assessments from the global to the local level.
National capacity-building is being emphasized by many of FAO's member countries. A recent review of the 1990 assessment has explicitly recommended that FAO's forest resources assessment programme increase emphasis in this area. The task is certainly part of FAO's mandate. Whether, and to what extent, it should be part of the forest resources assessment programme itself still needs to be discussed. This question also has a bearing on another: which user voices should FAO listen to -those asking for quick global figures on a single main issue (such as the state of deforestation at present) and at short reporting intervals, or those giving priority to promoting the development of a better information base at the country level? Both schools are raising their voices very strongly vis-à-vis FAO.
Given its resource situation, FAO cannot give full weight to both approaches. The quick approach is easier and probably better in terms of public information (especially as there often seems to be the impression that simply knowing the global deforestation rate is the key to solving the problems of the tropical forests). To work on country capacity building requires much patience and energy. What is not readily known is where and to what extent the provision of quick results at short intervals is a bottleneck factor in the type of policy and planning work done at the international level. In what way will a strategy for international forestry activities really become different if the planning group knows that the annual deforestation rate in tropical countries now is 15.4 million and not 11.4 million ha?
In its plans for forest resource assessment in the future, FAO has included a shift in emphasis towards country capacity-building. There are many reasons for this. One lies in its general mission of assisting countries. An underlying thought is that information alone does not solve problems: the information has also to be put into context and applied. Country capacity-building is a first step towards this end. It should clearly contain an element by which awareness of national and international planning problems - and thus crucial information needs - is created. Another reason is that FAO has a strength in its country contacts, in its acceptability as a neutral partner and in its continuing cooperation with and presence in all developing countries that have significant forest resources.
FAO has also oriented its programme towards assessment as a continuous activity. This would imply that the FORIS database will be continuously updated as new source information becomes available and that a sample covering the whole tropical area will be taken annually. In-depth reporting will be done at a maximum interval of five years, since it requires special efforts such as the standardization of FORIS source information. Interim reports may be prepared at shorter intervals. Whether or not these ideas can become reality depends on funding. From its regular budget, FAO plans to create an additional post at headquarters for forest resources assessment, and there are also preliminary indications of positive donor interest.
The task of implementing global forest resources assessments has become increasingly complex and requires an increased commitment of resources, both human and financial. At the same time many people from different national and international institutions are involved in this field. Proper coordination of the various activities becomes increasingly important and is very much to the interest of the various participants. However, the situation is that, in order to attract funding, all actors are emphasizing their uniqueness and none wants to be coordinated, although there is a general willingness to cooperate. A UNEP/FAO effort has been initiated to collect and make available a survey of the different people involved and the scope and content of their activities. The mere existence of such a survey should be able to prevent a major duplication of work and to facilitate the exchange of useful information. It should ensure that the survey results are also distributed to funding agencies.
The role of FAO
The field of information gathering for forestry and related planning at the international level is huge and challenging. The resources available are felt to be insufficient for the tasks at hand. This is particularly evident in view of the new importance given to this field by UNCED. As previously noted, the actors in this field are many and all have their special backgrounds and capabilities, which is why there is more reason than ever to clarify the specific role of FAO.
Two aspects come to mind if we try to state what the "comparative advantages" of FAO are: member countries having charged FAO with the collection, analysis, interpretation and dissemination of information on forests, in its Constitution and, repeatedly and insistently, in its governing bodies, are ipso facto "opening their books" to the Organization. This facility of access to countries, in the widest sense of the term, is the first aspect. FAO, representing nearly all countries of the world, is in a certain respect "at home" in each and every one of them. The second aspect derives from this universality: FAO is neutral, and therefore the objectivity of its information role is facilitated. The Organization and its staff have no vested interests and are not influenced by any group of countries or by their political or geopolitical interests.
The above implies that FAO, together with other UN organizations, has a particular strength where methods require the collaboration of all countries. In the light of this, the long-term FAO programme of capacity-building outlined above seems to be well adapted. If, on the other hand, the objective is to provide quick answers to new questions that are limited in topical and geographic scope, then other organizations with the flexibility to assign staff quickly to new tasks and to acquire necessary equipment within reasonable time may be better suited to the task.
