Variables
The long term objective of the survey is to contribute to sustainable forest and tree resources management. Three groups of variables have been defined to cover the social, economic and environmental aspects. They will enable to describe the forest and TOF resources in the country. The extent of variables is defined taking into account the need to produce different outputs in the predefined forest and tree attributes such as land use/land cover area, volume, biomass and carbon, resources management and state, biodiversity and uses of resources. The variables are also chosen to provide the necessary information for both national and global decision making. The set consists of a core of global variables that will permit to monitor and report on global issues like forest product trade, biodiversity, ecosystems, climate change, etc and a more detailed group that may still be tailored to satisfy the national information requirements. The attributes, outputs and variables are given in table 1 and in Annex 1.
Through the identified and listed variables, the inventory will provide an insight on the extent and quality of the resources, the way they are managed by Government agencies and by the local populations and to which extent these contribute into the national economy and in food security in general.
.For the purpose of national inventories of forest and tree resources, a vegetation/land use classification system has been developed on the basis of the global classes used by FRA 2000. The FRA global classes are used as a standard base to design a harmonised country classification system with the necessary desegregation that meets national information requirements and to reflect, to the extent possible, the characteristics of forest types and other land classes in the country (see classification system in Annex 2).