This three-day workshop was organised to provide input from regional experts to the Drafting of a global Ecological Zone map for use in the Forest Resources Assessment 2000 of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Recommendations from the Kotka 111 Meeting indicated that there was a need for FAO to provide information on forests by ecological zone for the year 2000, in addition to reporting by the traditional administrative regions. Although this was carried out in the previous FRA for the tropical regions of the world, the meeting at Kotka confirmed the desirability of providing this type of information at global level. The Ecological Zoning map for the tropics that was used for the FRA 1990 was produced in a joint project by the Laboratoire d’Ecologie Terrestre (LET), Toulouse and FAO. For the FRA 2000, FAO in consultation with partner institutions and experts is devising a classification system for global ecological zoning/mapping. The system is building upon the 1990 experience for the tropics, extending the coverage to include the temperate and boreal forests.
The system was tested in South America by LET, and in the USA and Canada by a team of people in different agencies of these two countries, working in conjunction with the US Geological Survey EROS Data Center (EDC). This workshop provided the forum for the presentation and discussion of these two case studies, and the attempt to apply the proposed system in all of the other areas of the world.
Delegates came from organisations based in 15 countries. The location of the organisations did not necessarily reflect the area of expertise of the individuals. There was however an emphasis on temperate and boreal regions because this had not been mapped for Ecological Zones before for the FRA, whereas the topical regions had been. The agenda was very packed, with plenary sessions as well as breakout working groups. Doug Williamson very kindly agreed to Chair the meeting.
The presentations of the South America and North America case studies showed that the system was mappable both in the tropics and in temperate and boreal regions. The conversion from the system of Ecofloristic Zones used in the FRA 1990 was shown to be uncomplicated and feasible. The classification of Ecological Zones agreed upon at the meeting was based on the Köppen classification of climate, but had a number of modifications to emphasise certain ecologically important features. There were 19 classes in the final classification, each with some brief parameters. Corresponding major vegetation types for these zones should be determined in the post-workshop phase by FAO in consultation with the workshop participants. Particular features of note in the classification were:
The workshop was hosted by WCMC on its premises, as part of the contribution of WCMC to the FRA 2000, which is funded by DFID. WCMC’s general contribution to the FRA mainly focuses on biodiversity, conservation implications and ecological aspects of the FRA.
