National Forest Monitoring and Assessment - NFMA

NFA approach

NFA’s are country-specific projects to collect, manage, make available and analyze information on forest resources, their management and use covering the entire country. The process includes analyses, evaluations and scenario developments. The base tool is a national forest inventory with a country-wide set of sample plots. A wide range of information is collected at these locations through measurements, observations and interviews. Together, the sample provides a complete and holistic assessment of the resources and their management and uses at the national level. The NFA approach covers the entire country area to capture all forest resources, including woodlands and trees outside forests. Where requested, the project will integrate other land use parameters, especially agriculture, to provide possibilities for inter-sectoral policy analyses. The field data are complemented by remote sensing techniques to improve results and to provide information on past land use dynamics. NFA’s are designed to be cost-effective and sustainable. Investments in national forest monitoring need to be long-term and have to rely on stable institutional arrangements in the country. NFA’s are also designed to provide national results within reasonable time, typically two years from project inception.

Implementation

Following requests by countries, FAO supports a multi-stakeholder process to define and implement the NFA. Often, the process is closely related to the national forest programme of the country, involving a similar set of organizations. A broad national ownership is necessary to ensure credibility and wide use of the findings for decision-making. The NFA programme has also stimulated considerable south-south collaboration between project countries, thus enhancing the overall capacity in developing countries and stimulating international networking. Further, a Knowledge Reference has been established in collaboration with leading scientists to support NFA’s.

FRA country support is a long term approach to improved forest and TOF knowledge management