Foro Global sobre Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (Foro FSN)

Hello,

Please find below, comments on the FAO Voluntary Guidelines on National Forest Monitoring provided to me by Dr. Steen Magnussen.  

Best regards, Jeff.

Pretty good document. Below are some specific comments.

1.       In section 4.1 the term ‘landscape view’ is used. Meaning what?  I have an idea but don’t want to just guess.

2.       In the third bullet of 4.1.1 something is missing. A rewrite is in order. In the same section a rather narrow view of the role of RS is put forward (classification).

3.       Box 4. There will never be a scientifically based minimum level of acceptable precision. How could there be?

4.       In 4.2.1 fourth bullet. Meaning is unclear. The term ‘on-the-ground information’ in the 7th bullet is too vague.

5.       If the population frame is determined from a map (say a forest mask) then errors in this frame must be mentioned. Some sample points may actually be outside the frame and should therefore, in theory, be withdrawn from the list of  sample locations. However, over time the forest frame may change. Therefore if forests is the population of interest it is best to use ‘all land’ for selection of sample locations but only sample field data on  forested locations. Periodic updates of the forest mask will provide important statistics on forest area. Many national inventories apply this approach to avoid otherwise serious issues of a sliding population frame.

6.       Box 7 (p. 23)  and Box 9. The issue of autocorrelation is only relevant for the efficiency of a sample design. This comes out at a later point. But here it may not be appreciated. Perhaps rephrase the paradigm of optimizing the within plot variability towards minimizing the among-plot variance, which, of course, is done by maximizing the within plot variance.

7.       Page 23 mentioned that it is not possible to optimize the sample size for several sample sizes. I think the statements needs to be softened a bit. I can think of solutions if you don’t require the same precision for all variables; and yet others based on optimization given constraints on budget and or time.

8.       In the 7th bullet in 4.2.3 it may be worthwhile to mention that the fidelity of geo-referencing in RS is not perfect. In some years, and some locations it is ‘user beware’.

9.       In the 8th bullet in 4.2.3 Your dismissal of fixed-count sampling is too harsh. Of course, fixed-count estimators are not design-based. Steen Magnussen has developed new and approximately unbiased fixed-count estimators of stem density and is on the verge of submitting a manuscript illustrating the same desirable property for density estimators of VOL and BA.

10.   What is a statistical model? A model is a model. It may be used in connection with a statistical estimation procedure. But the term is foreign to me.

11.   On page 28 and forward the term ‘introduces variability’ is used as if variability is exchangeable for errors and even bias. A thorough revision is called for. One that eliminates the ill-defined ‘variability’.

12.   On page 30 the sentence ‘when reporting only’ needs a revision. I also found the implicit linking of errors to failures rather mysterious.

13.   In 4.2.7 on the issue of QA/QC a statistical approach to quality control should be promoted rather than a rule of thumb (10% of field plots to be remeasured!). In particular a sequential QA/QC statistical analysis is efficient. Remember, a decision has to be made: accept or reject the work. So clear limits of acceptable ‘errors’ or ‘divergence’ are needed.

14.   A point worth mentioning? If confidence intervals are given for a large number of inventory attributes they are merely point-wise intervals. One must recognize that the multivariate confidence level is lower. This is important because NFMS deal with many reportable attributes and when deciding on sample size the multivariate nature of the statistics is often ignored.

Jeff Dechka

Director, Forest Information / Canadian Forest Service

Natural Resources Canada / Government of Canada

It is encouraging the process of development of the NFMS is bottom up to;

Increase ownership/acceptance and ensure needs of stakeholders are met and that there are no questions raised later when it comes to decision making/misinterpretations and failure to collect important data and to 

It is noted the development of the NFMS process is participatory, hope that takes care of countries that have devolved or decentralised forest management. And if that is the case recognises (Embedded in policy briefs) the need to build capacity of responsible persons from the lower local governments.

The NFMS informs on areas that may need development/improvement, and that this information will be documented/reported and subsequently communicated/ disseminated to stakeholders, including communities. What next after that? What are the provisions (in the draft) to capture follow up actions on the findings of the monitoring process and reporting. The future NF monitoring may build on that as a starting point.

Dear Colleagues,

I thank FAO for this noble initiative. The draft is very useful and informative.

Following are some of my comments;

1. Little more narration under certain sections may be helpful for easy understanding, interpretation and its uniform application. For example, under training need assessment and capacity building support, FAO can think about defining the roles of different stakeholders in this exercise as well as a standard methodology for undertaking the same.

2. Some good practices can be included under specific sections viz. institutional collaboration or inter-sectoral collaboration.

3. Possible inclusion of a set of training modules for different stakeholders.

4. Involvement of village level trained youth volunteers in the monitoring exercise.

5. Formation of a National Level Task Force (20-25 members) to execute planning & monitoring exercise. The Task Force shall be well represented by Senior Forest Officials, Policy Makers, Scientists, Subject Matter Specialists, Social Experts, Consultants and Experts from Private sector and Civil Society Organisations.

6. Adequate space for participation of Community Based Organisations (viz. Forest Rights Committees or Van Panchayats/VSS in India).

Once again thanks for this opportunity.

Best Regards,

Manoj

Excellent document, covering widely the different aspects of establishing a national forest monitoring system. Few hints to consider:

1. Chapter 3.1 deals with the mandate. Would it be necessary to discuss here, or somewhere, the different roles of implementing organizations. I mean, if one of the goals of the NFMS is to monitor quality of forest management, the NFMS should be independent from organizations responsible for forest management. Perhaps this was discussed in the earlier Chapters, I did not check.

2. Chapter 3.2 Identification of information Needs. I think that in one WFC2015 sessions, Andrew Lister pointed out that it would be useful to document INA process and the decisions made on the information content of NFMS. This would mean some kind of listing of reasons why some themes were rejected and why some themes where accepted in the NFMS information content. It was an excellent proposal, that could be added here?

3. Chapter 4.2.2 Sampling Design, Box 7. Please add a statement that there are also well established methods for estimating variance from systematic samples, reference to the work of Matern, for example.

4. Chapter 4.2.3 Sampling Design, page 24. Very well discussion about the need to consider the long term monitoring aspect when planning stratifications. Could add here some warnings about the need to consider all the key variables when planning the stratification, because a stratfication that may improve estimation of one key variable may be very ineffective for another key variable?

5. Chapter 4.2.6. Here or somewhere else(4.4?) add a recommendation that data processing, calculations, should be started as soon as you have some data. This may reveal some unexpected errors in the measurement guidelines or practices.

6. Chapter 4.3.4. Would this be good place to remind about work safety? One useful tool to improve the safety of field work is mapping of risks and sharing the results of this mapping in the training.

7. Chapter 4.4.1: Add about the need to make responsibilities very clear: who is allowed to clean the data, who is responsible to back up the data etc. Or, perhaps this was explained in some other Chapter?

8. Finally, a more general comment: I think you should consider possibility to make this document more practical by showing some good practices. For example, how the efficiency of monitoring has been improved. And estimators for means and totals, and their variances in the most common sampling designs should be shown in a compact and practical manner. I think that for example the German and US NFI's have made such details available, but it would be very useful to collect this information under this document, as well.  

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In our university the methodology of environmental audit areas and agricultural land. Feature land area Polissya of Ukraine: sandy, little fertile soil. Such land subject to natural afforestation. Some plantations are aged 20 years. This is actually a new forest. Therefore, monitoring and auditing of forest and agricultural land should have common issues to study.
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All success. Write

I support the comments by Javier Fernandez -re financial sustainability of the inventory program especially if long term monitoring is to be involved and Christian Laurent's suggestion for more series of charts. 

One way to obtain financial sustainability is to have the requirement for period assessments of the nation's forest resources is to have it built into the laws.  The US has (at least I assume it still has) the 1974 Renewable Resources Planning act which required an periodic assessment (10 years) of the Nation's Forest and Range resources (see http://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/fia/topics/rpa/).  Since it is essentially a law, the government has to fund. Given a nation's international obligations these day, UNFCCC, COB, FRA, etc. I suspect there is plenty of justification for sustainable funding of a country's forest resources.

I also suggest the incorporation of photos of various aspects of carrying out the monitoring... something to break up the text and to make the document more eye-appealing and interesting.

My name is Akpoke C. Christian, a practicing beekeeper working with Ebonyi State Agricultural Development Programme in Nigeria as the Subject Matter Specialist (SMS) on AGROFORESTRY.

Considering the global positive effects of honeybees on rendering effective pollination services which multiply forest plants, I write to contribute that without honeybees our forest must vanish one day.

Bees can be used to monitor and sustain national forest by fully involving real practicing experienced beekeeper in the programme or team. They are to propagate the forest trees for their good and deploy bee hives/colonies within the forest perimeters which keep away forest enemies and pollinate forest trees.

I wish to refer to a project at Kenya where the honeybees was used to keep away the almighty giant elephant away from the areas they are disturbing human existence.

For effective result in this programme, honeybees are highly needed.

NO BEES! NO FOREST!

MORE BEES AND BEEKEEPERS!

MORE SUSTAINED AND CONSERVED FORESTS!!

Thanks.

Christian (Mr Bee).

Thank you very much for having a broad discussion on the issues which are need of the current period. I feel monitoring of forests and allied activities a need of hours. Though we are already late nevertheless right action may balance. Therefore, I can suggest that awareness creation about the utility/importance of the forest must be foremost agenda of policy at local as well as at global level. It is because people must understand why forest are important and how one individual can contribute to conserve and protect the forest resources. Survival and existence are really becoming so difficult due to ever growing population resulting higher demand for forest products and posing threat for their degradation.

By monitoring forest will give an idea of balance and gap in demand and supply of forest goods and services. Therefore, it has to be monitored and brought to the notice to the public.

The scientific basis of a minimum 33% of land area under forest cover is not known.In the southern state of Kerala(India) an aerial survey will indicate more green cover due to plantation crops like coconut, rubber, palmyrah, cardamom, coffee, tea ,cashew and cocoa.Forestry and agro-forestry are terms loosely used.Clarity for following are needed:

1.With dwindling human habitat and urbanisation , there is heavy pressure on land.Intrusion into declared forest area is rampant.Is it practical to fix a proportion as under forest cover?

2.Awareness on forests and forestry need to be a part of sylabi in primary school level.

(K V Peter)

• Cette version aborde-t-elle de façon adéquate tous les éléments requis pour mettre sur pied et maintenir un système national de suivi des forêts ?

Je pense que l’ensemble des éléments à prendre en compte ou à prévoir sont bien explicités. Un chronogramme schématique pourrait être ajouté, avec les étapes du processus de préparation et de réalisation. Cela compléterait les éléments repris dans le texte, de manière plus pratique.

• Quels autres aspects techniques, logistiques ou politiques devraient être abordés dans le document ?

Un encart pourrait être ajouté, présentant les différents schémas d’échantillonnage et leurs avantages et inconvénients, en matière statistique, de réalisation pratique et de coûts. Ces éléments sont diffus dans le texte et les rassembler dans un seul tableau serait utile.

• Étant donné que les directives volontaires élaborées devront être utilisées par les  administrateurs des systèmes nationaux de suivi des forêts, quels sont les aspects spécifiques de la section  III à améliorer pour atteindre cet objectif ?
• être abordés dans le document ?

Un encart pourrait être ajouté, présentant les différents types d’unités d’échantillonnage et leurs avantages et inconvénients, selon les grands types de forêts.

• Y a-t-il des contenus redondants qui pourraient être supprimés pour rendre le document plus concis ?

Pas de remarque à ce sujet.