FRA 2010 NEWS 05
Welcome
We are pleased to present the fifth issue of the FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment 2010 E-Newsletter, the FRA 2010 News.
With this newsletter we aim to connect all FRA national and international partners and other forest resource assessment professionals and to bring you the latest FRA 2010 - related information. All issues of the FRA 2010 News are posted online at: www.fao.org/forestry/site/48835/en.
In this issue you will find information on the progress of the different components of FRA 2010, on the forest products statistics and on national forest monitoring and assessment systems. It also provides information on the workshops and meetings related to FRA.
Contents
1. The FRA 2010 Country reporting process
2. The Remote Sensing Survey
3. Special Studies
4. Forest products statistics
5. NFMA
6. Meetings
7. Publications
1. The FRA 2010 Country reporting process
The deadline for the submission of the FRA 2010 final draft Country Reports was the end of May 2009.
To date we have a total of 210 reports. Of these, 65 have been finalized and 145 are drafts that are being reviewed. We would like to thank, once again, all those National Correspondents who submitted their draft report in time. We have still not received any report from 23 countries and territories and since the deadline for the submission of the final drafts report has expired, we urge the remaining National Correspondents to please submit their draft report as soon as possible.
The next important step of the FRA 2010 Country Reporting Process is the validation of final Country Reports which will take place from July to August 2009, during which time official requests for validation of the final Country Reports will be sent to the countries.
2. The Remote Sensing Survey (RSS)
- As reported in the last FRA newsletter a workshop was held for 22 countries involved in the Pilot Study of the FRA 2010 Remote Sensing Survey (RSS) between 30 March and 3 April. Presentations by FAO and partners involved in the work including researchers from the EC Joint Research Centre and South Dakota State University are available through the FRA RSS meetings page: http://www.fao.org/forestry/55919/en/
- Pilot Study countries are now involved in testing the methodologies and are encouraged to submit their results and comments to FAO as soon as they are ready. Other countries will be involved in training in later in 2009 and into 2010.
- FRA Partners at South Dakota State University have improved the spatial accuracy of some of the 2005 Landsat imagery and these are now on-line: http://globalmonitoring.sdstate.edu/projects/fao/search.html
There may still be some images which are not well spatially located. Please let us know if you find errors and send us the Tile ID (EastxxxNorthyyy) so we can investigate it and see if it can be fixed.
Interesting images:
These images come from a FRA sample tile in Indonesia and show dense forest growing around the crater of Mt Bromo, with encroaching agricultural land in the upper right.
You can find out more and download the Landsat images from:http://globalmonitoring.sdstate.edu/projects/fao/pages.land/e113s08.data.html
PS It looks great if you have Google Earth installed (see right image) you can click on the Tile Outline link [KMZ] in the Landsat imagery database.
3. Special studies
Special Study on Trees outside forest (TOF)
The thematic study on trees outside forest in the framework of FRA 2010 will aim at the following:
a) Clarification of the definition for practical aspects of assessment, planning and monitoring of TOF;
b) Review and collation of existing assessment methodologies as well as methodologies for planning and monitoring purposes;
c) Harmonization of TOF assessment methodology with the FRA reporting format;
d) Production of guidelines for the FRA National Correspondents.
The activities foreseen during the first year (July 2009 to June 2010) will be to put in place an Advisory Task Force for technical advice, institutional partnership and guidance during the implementation of the study, a desk study for information analysis and methodology development, a peer review of the information basis, and an initial validation through case studies.
A number of studies could be analysed to provide a comprehensive overview of trees outside forest at national level, from a resource, institutional and policy point of view. In the framework of the thematic study, agroforestry, as a specific category of TOF productive systems, will receive special attention. The thematic report is expected to be published in 2010.
The Thematic study on TOF is under the technical supervision of the Forest Conservation Service (FOMC). To know more about this special study, please contact [email protected].
Forest degradation study
A presentation was made during UNFCCC SBSTA, side event, in Bonn, June 2009 on the “Assessment and Monitoring of Forest Degradation “(www.fao.org/forestry/degradation-cpf/en/), while IUCN gave a presentation on their global assessment of forest restoration potential.
A brochure on forest degradation has been also published (see publications below).
4. Forest Products Statistics
The Yearbook of Forest Products 2007 has now been published.
It is available online at: http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/i0750m/i0750m00.htm.
The Yearbook contains Forest Products Statistics that were released in January 2009 on the FAO website: http://faostat.fao.org/site/630/default.aspx
To get a copy please contact [email protected].
5. National Forest Monitoring Assessment (NFMA)
The NFMA programme of FAO is acknowledged as an important instrument to strengthen national capacities and institutions, and develop sound baseline information on forest and tree resources. To respond to new needs and requirements of information for national policy developments and strategic planning, and international dialogue FAO is launching a large programme of studies with aim to strengthen the methodological base of NFMA including developing sampling design scenarios per major eco-zone, use of remote sensing in NFMA, information quality control and assurance, NFMA impact analysis. All these studies will be developed from the national needs perspective including for REDD readiness and reporting on Green House Gas emissions.
6. Meetings
Technical Meeting on Assessment and Monitoring of Forest Degradation
The Technical Meeting on “Assessment and Monitoring of Forest Degradation” will take place at FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy, from 8 to 10 September 2009.
The objectives of the meeting will be to present an analysis of definitions of forest degradation, present the case studies on forest degradation, review the results and recommend actions to improve measurement, assessment and reporting on forest degradation. The meeting will provide an opportunity for participants to discuss technical aspects of methodologies for assessing and monitoring forest degradation.
For more information contact: [email protected]
2nd GEO Forest Monitoring Symposium
The Second Forest Monitoring Symposium of the Group Earth Observation will take place in Chiang Rai, Thailand, from1-3 July 2009. The Symposium will build on the conclusions and recommendations of the first Symposium on Forest Monitoring held in Brazil in 2008. It aims to enable the GEO community to further advance international cooperation on key observational, interoperability and methodological issues and to accelerate the development of an operational forest monitoring system.
To find out more: http://www.earthobservations.org/
WFC XIII
The XIII World Forestry Congress will be held from 18 to 25 October 2009 in the city of Buenos Aires and its theme will be “Forests in development: a vital balance.”
Around 3200 abstracts and a hundred requests for Side Events from different players in the Forestry Community have been received. These abstracts have now been reviewed and 460 have been selected for development into full papers.
FRA will feature prominently on the agenda, so do register for this important event. To find out more: http://www.cfm2009.org
7. Publications
The United Nations Environment Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the United Nations Forum on Forests have joined efforts to analyse, synthesize and illustrate key topical forest issues to help communicate the value of forests to policy makers and the wider public in this publication called “ Vital Forest Graphics:” Authors from around the world provided text and case studies for this publication. All subscribers to the FRA 2010 Newsletter will receive a copy.
We regret that it is currently only available in English.
The Forest Finance Working Paper “Contribution of the forestry sector to national economies, 1990-2006, (by A.Lebedys)” is an update of a recent FAO study published in 2004. It presents information about the contribution of the forestry sector to national economies at the global, regional and country levels. The paper provides figures for total employment, value-added (1990-2006) and export earnings (1990-2007) in the sector, as well as information about trends in productivity. The figures include a mixture of statistics taken from published official sources and FAO estimates.
If you would like to receive a hardcopy of this report, kindly request it by sending an e-mail to: [email protected]. The document is also available at: www.fao.org/docrep/011/k4588e/k4588e00.htm
A new brochure describes the challenge of Measuring Forest Degradation and explains the special study to identify the elements of forest degradation and the best practices for assessing them.
Further information on this work can be found at the CPF website: www.fao.org/forestry/degradation-cpf/en/