Geographical levels of forest inventories
Forest inventories at local level
Forest information is required on different geographical levels. For forest stands, forest inventories are carried out to plan forest operations or to prepare selling standing timber. For forest enterprises, forest inventories are periodically carried out to prepare forest management plans which define silvicultural treatments such as thinnings, harvests etc. for a planning period.
Forest inventories at national level
National Forest Inventories (NFI) are carried out in many countries to assess the forest situation at national level. Objectives of NFIs are considerably different from those of forest stand or forest management inventories. The information generated is used in national policy processes, for policy formulation in the forest sector and related sectors and to monitor the impact of forest policies. In addition, the development of the national forest resource (in terms of forest area, species composition, growing stock etc.) are important input for various international political processes to which national governments have subscribed (such as the Convention on Biological Diversity CBD, and the Framework Convention on Climate Change UNFCCC.
Forest inventories and assessments at global level
Global forest assessments are being carried out by FAO since 1948 on a regular basis. In the 1960s UNESCO expressed the urgent need for integrated resources assessments with the objective to promote the conservation of nature. UNCED 1992 made it obvious that there is a great gap regarding natural resources information. There in Agenda 21 a whole section was dedicated to the topic of the role of information, Chapter 40 has the title “Information for Decision Making”. There, paragraph 40.1 reads “In sustainable development, everyone is a user and provider of information considered in the broad sense. That includes data, information, appropriately packaged experience and knowledge. The need for information arises at all levels, from that of senior decision makers at the national and international levels to the grass-roots and individual levels.” Global forest mapping and satellite imagery based forest area estimations are also being carried out and published by other institutions (such as the JRC, the Joint Research Centre of the European Communities) – but they are usually restricted to forest area information so that it is not really a global forest inventory or assessment (in which we are interested in many more attributes), but “just” a global forest mapping.
