Capacity building in development of national systems for forest monitoring

The UNECE/ FAO (Geneva) contributes to the FAO work to enhance and strengthen national capacities in forest and land use monitoring, assessment and reporting. This contribution goes, in particular, through the partnership and active participation in the COST Action E43, which is directly linked to the National Forest Inventories (NFA). The global and regional FRA standards (classifications, terms and definitions) help to harmonise the national reporting to FRA- and C&I- related international data collection processes.

The organisation and running regional and sub-regional training and review workshops/ meetings are the crucial elements of the FRA country reporting process. They help to countries (FRA National Correspondents) to provide the collection and reporting the most comprehensive and reliable data. This was proved in the implementation of the global FRA-2005.

The latest global FRA Expert Consultation “Kotka V” (June 2006) recommended that “FAO should continue to provide support to capacity-building related to FRA, national forest assessments, and other activities related to monitoring, assessment and reporting related to forest resources”. The regional and sub-regional workshops are expected to be an important element of the next global Forest Resources Assessment and Monitoring (FRA-2010). The Geneva (Timber Section) secretariat will traditionally contribute this work.