This "Biomass Primer" has been prepared under a contract with FAO by Dr. Sandra Brown of the University of Illinois, Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences; presently on assignment with the US Environmental Protection Agency, National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, Western Ecology Division, Corvallis, Oregon. FAO is greatly indebted to Dr. Brown who has generously offered her experience and her time far beyond her contractual obligations.
FAO is also grateful to the following people for input to various phases of the report: Alberto Del Lungo and Aji Perera for estimating biomass from forest inventories for many tropical African and American countries, Andy Gillespie for development of the moist and wet biomass regression equations, and Ariel E. Lugo, Jack Winjum, Micheal Cairns and Reed I. White for helpful comments on this report.
