Data collection and analysis

Several subregional workshops have been held to review and assess the current availability, accuracy and completeness of forestry statistics and to suggest viable options for the collection and use of statistics in the future. These workshops have included a broad-based review of forestry information with participants from the public and private sector as well as local and regional non-governmental organisations.

Objectives

The overall objective for these workshops was to promote data collection and analysis in countries to provide improved information for the implementation of sustainable forest management. The specific objectives of the workshops were as follows:

• to review existing statistics and develop procedures to strengthen data collection and dissemination in countries;
• to strengthen the capacity in countries to collect and analyse forestry statistics, through technical presentations and group discussions;
• to provide information and training on standardised international definitions and data formats for forestry statistics, so that statistics can be compared over time and between countries;
• to develop opportunities for further collaboration between countries, including the establishment of networks of statistical correspondents; and
• to discuss the types of data and analyses that are useful for policy and planning activities such as outlook studies.

The workshops examined forestry statistics in the following two broad areas: forest resources and forest products. Technical guidance and training was provided at the workshops by FAO staff and visiting experts, who also prepared many background documents for participants to read and discuss at the workshops.

Outputs

The workshop proceedings include copies of country papers presented at the workshops plus a record of the discussions and conclusions reached at the workshops. The views expressed in these documents are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the EC or the FAO. The documents have been minimally edited for clarity and style.

The documents can be downloaded below either as HTML (by clicking on the picture of the document or the title) or PDF (by clicking on the PDF logo). Each document will open in a new window. Each document is only available in the language(s) indicated after the title.