Mengin-Lecreulx applied his study to define and then assess the Indicators which could be taken into account for the new global forest resources assessment (Indicators of Sustainable Forest Management at National Level and Possibilities to Assess them in National, Regional and Global Forest Inventories, Kotka, Finland, 10-14 June 1996). After the Expert Consultation on Global Forest Resources Assessment (GFRA) 2000 (Kotka III, Finland, 10-14 June 1996), experts recommended 15 Indicators and estimated that 8 supplementary Indicators could be partially evaluated.
Among these national and global level Indicators, it seems that 16 were taken into consideration in the framework of the six NFPs studied in this note (see Annex 7: The Indicators of FRA 2000 and their Role in the NFP). The others, which were of purely global concept (total carbon storage) or very theoretical notions (Fragmentation of forests or Change in defoliation during the last 5 years) are far beyond the immediate concerns stemming from sustainable forest management.
Moreover, as defined in the framework of FRA, the national systems of forest assessment should participate not only in the measurement of the Indicators, but also offer information which could facilitate the actions of NFP and their review/actualisation.
During the up-date of data on global forest resources for SOFO 1997, a questionnaire was sent out by the Forest Resources Division. The level of reply (around 25%) thus underlines a first necessity for improving information control and its distribution, which can be taken into account in the framework of NFP.
FRA Questionnaire and the Replies
|
Region |
Number of Countries* |
Number of Replies |
Information Provided on |
||
|
Forest Cover in General |
Importance of Plantations |
Forest Resources (Inventory) |
|||
|
Asia |
45 |
19 |
5 |
10 |
4 |
|
Africa |
53 |
7 |
4 |
2 |
1 |
|
Latin America |
44 |
11 |
7 |
2 |
2 |
|
Total |
143 |
37 |
16 |
14 |
7 |
* Having received a FRA questionnaire.
Of the countries having replied, most of them are engaged in NFP processes, although few are capable of transmitting up-to-date data based on forest inventories. This situation reflects the difficulty of underlining the importance of forest resources assessment in the establishment of a forestry policy. Moreover, the under-estimation of the role of inventories is obvious, as out of the 37 countries having replied, only 10 countries (mainly Asian) have conducted an inventory cycle up to now. Thus the revision mechanisms functioning in the framework of NFP could help to improve this situation.
Finally, it is important to note that the Criteria and Indicators of sustainable forest management and forest resources assessment data form essential tools if NFP are to be used as efficient vectors of sustainable forestry development. A number of NFP elaborated and implemented up until today are not as efficient as they should be, as the knowledge and strategic orientation tools are insufficient and unreliable.
