Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

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Mr. Patrick Norman

Member since
Organization: Griffith University
Country: Australia
Field(s) of expertise:

Patrick Norman is a research scientist at Griffith University, Australia. He specialises in assessing human impacts to the environment, particularly through remote sensing and volunteered geographic information. He has been employed in natural area management for the Queensland Government, prior to undertaking his doctoral research, which focused on assessing people’s movements through national parks to identify areas likely to suffer environmental damage and visitor conflict.

Field of expertise:

  • Remote sensing
  • Protected area management
  • Biodiversity and natural resources
  • Forest ecology
  • Visitor monitoring
  • Recreation ecology

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This member contributed to:

    • Dear members of the FRA forum,

      What an incredible way to finish the e-consultation, with so many thorough and thought-provoking comments being submitted over the final few days. As the forum comes to a close, I’d like to express a big thank you to all those who have contributed, on my behalf as well as that of the whole Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) Programme.

      The next step of the process will be to analyse and assess the feedback received on the forum and with our best efforts, integrate these into the final version of the background paper. In order to ensure that we get the correct representation of respondent’s comments, we may be in contact with you for clarification.

      The final version of the report will be shared on this platform as well as being discussed at the first workshop, for the boreal biome, scheduled for March 17-19, 2020 in Ottawa, Canada.

      Kind regards,

      Patrick Norman

    • Dear members of the FAO forum,

      I’d like to start with a special thank you to all those who have contributed to the forum so far and it is great to see the growing amount of participation. This week there have been many important and thought-provoking points raised. Several commentators have discussed the need for clear thresholds around how much disturbance or the interval of time since disturbance, results in forests not being considered primary. On this topic respondents have raised points, such as the need to consider all human disturbances and at what point does old/ancient damage stop being and important consideration when defining primary forest.

      Another issue commonly discussed was the monitoring periods of remotely sensed datasets. In particular the limited timeframes of satellite data for some countries, as this influences the feasibility of these techniques for long-term monitoring of primary forest in these regions.

      Although these have been some of the most common discussed topics, the wealth of feedback received was much broader and more detailed. Many thanks to all commentators for their time and effort put into this consultation so far. Over the last five days of the consultation period we welcome and greatly appreciate any further comments and feedback.

      Thank you and kind regards

      Patrick Norman

    • Dear members of the FRA Forum,

      Thank you to those that have already posted their feedback in the early stages of the consultation process. The contributions so far have provided valuable insights into the different methods used to measure primary forest cover (e.g. Landsat and aerial imagery; calculating tree densities and tree species cover; excluding areas around human impact areas) as well as methodological changes required to improve reporting (e.g. Harmonizing datasets and reporting rules; ensuring all forest areas are initially assessed). The current definition of primary forest generally appears to be well accepted by those who have contributed feedback, although issues around non-native forests being defined as primary forest is seen as an important consideration.

      Also, the comments about the draft background paper have been very useful. The need for clarification about on ground forest condition assessment, primary forest detection methods and increasing the papers readability have been suggested.

      Many thanks to those who have contributed so far. We welcome further inputs and reactions, as well as encouraging future contributors to refer as much as possible to the four guiding questions in the topic note.

      Kind regards,

      Patrick Norman

      Griffith University