Ram Prasad and C.S. Rathore
Director, and Assistant Professor Applied Computer Technology
Indian Institute of Forest Management
Bhopal, India
INTRODUCTION
The Indian National Forest Policy (NFP) of 1988, in its section 4.14 has highlighted a national concern on inadequacy of forest resource information and has emphasized on the need for information collection and dissemination. The relevant section in the NFP 1988, titled " Forest Survey and Database " states:
"Inadequacy of data regarding forest resources is a matter of concern because this creates a false sense of complacency. Priority needs to be accorded to completing the survey of forest resources in the country on scientific lines and to updating information. For this purpose, periodical collection, collation and publication of reliable data on relevant aspects of forest management needs to be improved with recourse to modern technology and equipment. "
The need and importance of a Forestry Information System (FIS) for the country has therefore been clearly mandated.
Reviewing the current state of collection, collation and dissemination of forestry information in India, it can be stated that the establishment of a National FIS can best be described to be in its infancy (Rathore, 1999). Although mandated in the NFP, a comprehensive and systematic mechanism for collection, collation, analysis and dissemination of forestry data at the national level is yet not available. In summary, the forestry sector in India is at a rudimentary stage in developing a holistic National Information System for handling forest data.
In the absence of a well defined centralized national forest information system, forestry information on different subjects is collected and disseminated by a number of agencies which fall in the following broad categories:
Ministry of Environment and Forests Government of India
Central Government Organizations
State Forest Departments
Academic Institutions
Non Governmental Organizations
The nature, method of collection, storage and dissemination of information by various organizations in the above categories is largely independent of each other and mostly uncoordinated.
A brief review of the current status of forestry information collection and dissemination by various organizations at the national level in india is given below:
Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India
The Ministry of Environment and Forests performs its primary information collection and dissemination activities through the Environmental Information System, ENVIS. As the name suggests, the subject range of ENVIS covers a wide gamut of environmental concerns. Data on subjects like forest resources, forest plantations, wood-supplies and trade, fuelwood production and consumption, NWFP and trees outside forest find limited representation in the current ambit of information activities of ENVIS.
ENVIS has its focal point at the Ministry of Environment and Forests in New Delhi. Basically, ENVIS has been visualized as a decentralized information system which has entrusted 25 existing organizations to collect, collate, store and disseminate information on specific subject areas. Of the 25 subject focussed ENVIS centers, Forestry is represented as a single subject by one node, which is located at the Forest Research Institute in Dehradun. In the ENVIS arrangement, anyone desirous of obtaining information on any aspect of forestry needs to write to the Forest Research Institute at Dehradun which would try to locate the desired information for the ENVIS user. The ENVIS Centre on "Forestry" at Forests Research Institute (FRI), has developed databases on various aspects of forestry and associated disciplines (MOEF, 2000).
Apart from the above, ENVIS is also designated as a national centre for the Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP), a joint project of UNDP and IDRC, Canada which is currently providing information in sustainable development through its Internet website. ENVIS also acts as the National Focal Point (NFP) for INFOTERRA, a global environmental information network of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
It would be worth while to clarify that in its physical outlay, ENVIS is not a centrally administered interconnected computer network of environment and Forest databases. It's centers work independently storing information in ways that they individually deem fit and respond to user queries directly. Coverage of specific forestry data on specific forestry subjects in not extensive.
The Environment and Forests Division of the National Informatics Centre, New Delhi, provides wide-ranging and vital support to the Ministry in Dissemination of Information.
Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MSPI)
The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation is a key agency in the country, which collects and disseminates official statistics on number of themes. The data so collected aids planning at a national scale. With reference to forestry information, two organizations within the MSPI provide major inputs. These are:
The Central Statistics Organization
The National Sample Survey Organization
The Central Statistics Organization CSO
The CSO has an Environmental Statistics Unit, which collects and disseminates environmental information. The Environment Statistics Unit, amongst other things, collects information on protection of forests, flora and fauna. Dissemination is through special reports on specific themes. In 1997, a Compendium of Environment Statistics was brought out by Central Statistical Organization. There is also an increased concentration of the department on generating data on Natural Resource Accounting. It is proposed to launch a pilot project on natural resource accounting in Goa. The CSO has close links with the Ministry of Environment and Forests but the periodicity of data update is not frequent.
The National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO)
The National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO), head quartered at Delhi, carries out socio-economic surveys, undertakes field work for the Annual Survey of Industries and follow-up surveys of Economic Census, sample checks on area enumeration and crop estimation surveys. The NSSO has a number of topic specific divisions of which the Agricultural Statistics Survey Division collects data on fodder and other forestry related issues like common property resources. It disseminates information through special reports. In 1998, at the culmination of its 54th round of national sampling, it published a report on survey of common property resources.
The organization has a substantial reach in its data collection at the National level. The National Sample Survey is a continuous process where surveys are conducted in repeatable rounds. Every round lasts 1 year. The frequency of update for a topic is usually 5 years for some topics while 10 years for some others. In every round of sampling, 10,000 sample villages and 5000 urban blocks are sampled covering around 120 to 150 thousand households. The NSSO produces data at a national level.
Central Government Organizations
Forest Survey of India
The Forest Survey of India (FSI) is an associated institution of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India entrusted with the objective of preparing the State of Forests report and national Vegetation Map for India every two years. The FSI prepares forest inventories and also carries out growing stock and volume assessments. Vegetation maps at district levels are generated by FSI. With reference to generation of primary forest cover and resources data, FSI is currently a key organization in India. The FSI has four regional offices one each in Shimla, Calcutta, Nagpur and Bangalore which, in addition to supporting vegetation mapping, also take up wood consumption studies for their respective regions (Figure 1). The Forest Survey of India at its Dehradun office also has a National Forest Data Management Centre which is engaged in Digital Image Analysis , cartography and developing Geographic (GIS) & Forestry Databases. The flow of information within the FSI and from FSI to the Government of India is summarized in Figure 2.
Figure 1. Organizational hierarchy of FSI
Figure 2. Flowchart showing FSI data flow
Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE)
The ICFRE is an autonomous institution of the MOEF located at Dehradun. The ICFRE collects and disseminates forestry information in some subject areas. Broadly, three constituent units of the ICFRE are engaged in forestry information collection and dissemination. These are:
Directorate of Statistics
Division of Resource Survey and Management
National Forest Library and Information Centre (Library network under World Bank project)
The above units at ICFRE depend directly on the state forest departments to supply them with information. There is no field verification of the information supplied by state FD's to ICFRE (Figure 3). In addition to this, there is no uniform system of collecting information from state FD's. Dissemination of collected information also does not have a wide reach.
Figure 3. Flow of information to GOI from ICFRE
State Forest Departments
A number of state forest departments routinely collect, collate and disseminate forestry information. In most of the cases however, the information is not systematically collected and remains largely scattered within the state. Also in a large number of cases, information is not computerized and there are few databases that can provide information. Dissemination of such information is largely on request. The state forest departments of Andhra Pradesh , Madhya Pradesh , Maharashtra , Uttar Pradesh , Tamil Nadu , Karnataka and Gujrat have however taken steps in varying degrees to create computerized databases on forest resources (ITinFM, 2000). In some cases, there are plans to create thematic databases in the near future.
Forest working plans of forest divisions in various states have important information on a number of aspects. Some of the critical themes on which information is contained in the forest working plans are:
Extent of forest areas (by cover and type)
Timber and fuelwood yield per hectare MAI/CAI for major forest types.
Growing stock
General species occurrence - Flora and Fauna
The Minor Forest Produce Corporations and Forest Development corporations within each state also collect and disseminate forestry information on NWFPs and plantations although very little of this information is computerized or systematically collected.
Academic institutions
A few academic Institutions have also been involved in collecting and disseminating forestry information. The Indian Institute of Forest Management located at Bhopal is developing Internet based forestry resource pages. The focus of content on these pages is largely to provide an increased Indian content. The Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, which is also an ENVIS centre, also has data on a large number of subjects. The Wildlife Institute of India (WII), which is again an institution of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, collects and disseminates forestry related information, although, in a large part, the major focus of WIIs activities centre around wildlife. The WII has developed a National database on protected areas.
It must however be mentioned that the choice of subjects, nature of information collected and the target audience for information is entirely in the purview of academic institutions. No formal mechanisms of information exchange or systematic and mutually agreed upon methods of information collection currently exist.
Non governmental organizations (NGOs)
A few NGOs in India are also collecting and disseminating forestry related information on selected subjects. Efforts of some important organizations in this direction are briefly highlighted below.
Foundation for Revitalization of Local Health Traditions (FRLHT)
FRLHT is an NGO based in Bangalore which largely concentrates on medicinal plants and revitalization of health using local traditions and practices. FRLHT routinely collects information about the medicinal plants and also runs a network of distributed databases, which involves a large number of other institutions working in this subject area. The network called INMEDPLAN (The Indian Medicinal Plants Distributed Databases Network) involves the following other Indian agencies:
Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI), Lucknow for Pharmacology;
Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (CIMAP), Lucknow for Agro- technology;
Regional Research Laboratory (RRL), Jammu for Phytochemistry;
Publication and Information Directorate (PID) New Delhi, for Bibliography & Abstracts;
Botanical Survey of India (BSI) Dehradun, for Taxonomy;
Centre for Indian Medical Heritage (CIMH), Coimbatore for Traditional medicine;
Tropical Botanical Garden and Research Institute (TBGRI), Trivandrum for Ethno-medicine; and
Ayurvedic Research Institute (ARI), Trivandrum for Pharmacognosy.
Society for Promotion of Wasteland Development (SPWD)
The SPWD is based at New Delhi. Its major focus has been the regeneration of wastelands. One of the primary forestry interface areas that SPWD concentrates on is Joint Forest Management or community forestry and people's participation. The SPWD collects and brings out information on various facets related to wasteland development through its publications. In terms of information collection and dissemination, it does not form part of any wider computerized information network and largely works independently.
The World Wide Fund for Nature India (WWF)
The WWF India has a centre called IGCMC, which deals exclusively with GIS and has computerized databases. The IGCMC has a digital forest cover database for India (all states), The topics or themes are mainly two - the boundaries of Protected Areas of India and forest cover classification. With reference to the source of forest cover data, the IGCMC uses FSI data for its databases.
Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI)
The Tata Energy Research Institute is located in Delhi and primarily deals with energy conservation and energy issues. With reference to forestry related information, it collects and maintains data on energy plantations for UP Hills, bio-diversity and joint forest management. TERI also has an environmental directory (TEDDY) which has information on forest resources and plantations.
Development Alternatives (DA)
Located in Delhi, DA collects information on NTFPs and NTFP enterprises as one of its interest areas. It also collects data on various aspects of Joint Forest Management in areas of its interest.
The National Tree Growers' Co-operative Federation (NTGCF)
NTGCF is a national level multi-state co-operative society based at Anand in Gujarat (HQ) which primarily provides technical and financial help to village level Tree Growers Cooperative Societies. It also works in the area of regenerating the village commons and private marginal lands through plantations. In its sphere and area of work, NTGCF maintains substantial information on status of plantations.
Centre for Science and Environment (CSE)
The Centre for Science and Environment is located in Delhi and has been closely associated with the environmental movement in India. The centre publishes the State of India's Environment and regularly gathers data on a variety of forestry issues, which include wood trade, fuel wood consumption, joint forest management and many others.
There are many other NGOs working on similar themes and have data related to forestry subjects. The review of NGOs in this paper may therefore be treated as representative and not comprehensive.
SYNOPSIS
The above brief review has attempted to provide a current scenario of major national organizations in India engaged in collection and dissemination of forestry information. With reference to this review of the status of forestry information collection in India, a few points become apparent:
Forestry information is scattered and is with many organizations.
There are no standardized procedures for information collection or exchange.
There is no integrative container mechanism to assimilate and integrate the totality of information generated by various agencies.
There are no systematic and periodic checks to verify the quality and authenticity of information generated.
The information collection by a multitude of organizations, in the absence of central integration, is leading to a lack of focus on the objectives of information collection.
Users of information are not clearly known and there are no formal mechanisms to provide forestry information to guide national policy or for developing plans.
There are numerous important aspects of forestry like forest fires, unrecorded removal of timber etc. on which there is no available information.
Mechanisms of dissemination are extremely poor and in a large part manual through reports which reach a very limited audience.
There is a severe lack of systematic computerization of information.
There is a lack of computer connectivity between forestry organizations.
There is no single point forestry data access facility
There is poor communication between users and producers of information
It also needs to be emphasized that currently, there is hardly any credible national level information available on many very important aspects of forestry. The Sustainable Forest Management process for example, with its emphasis on Criteria and Indicators, is relatively new to the Indian forestry sector (IIFM 2000). In order to initiate and implement SFM programmes, a large quantum of information on specific aspects of forestry is required. Some such areas where information does not exist but which would be critical for SFM programmes are listed below (Prasad et al. 1999)
Area, location and percent of forest land having erosion hazard.
Area and percent of forestland with diminished or improved biological, chemical and physical components.
Stream flow deviations in forest areas from the past.
Employment from the forest
Inventory of NWFPs in terms of diversity and yield
Annual removal of NWFPs compared to sustainable yield
Value and volume of wood and non wood products
Recreation and tourism
Economic valuation of goods and services
Harvested area of old growth forests effectively regenerated
Status of forest flora in terms of threatened, rare, vulnerable, endangered or extinct.
Lack of such information can severely impact SFM initiatives in India.
In the above scenario therefore, there is an urgent need to establish a National Level Facility dedicated solely for collection, collation and dissemination of Forestry Information in India. Such a facility would be essential to overcome the above lacunae of the existing information collection scenario. The proposed facility will fulfill the following primary objectives:
create a systematic focus for information collection and integrate various sources of existing information through a seamless network;
provide a much-needed, single point, forestry information interface;
create a computer network between data collection organizations;
standardize procedures and formats for data collection; and
analyze and regularly disseminate information to policy makers, planners, practitioners, training institutions and the public.
The establishment of such a national facility will help focus information gathering efforts towards specific objectives like sustainable forest management.
The Indian Institute of Forest Management, being an autonomous Institution of the Ministry of Environment and Forests can be a possible host to such a National Forest Data Centre. As an educational institution having a wide subject mandate, IIFM can be ideal to cover and integrate a wide range of forestry information topics under the forest management canvas.
The proposed information system, which will center around the Internet as the connecting medium, can be implemented in two phases. Phase 1 can visualize a 'quick set up' segment which would essentially involve creation of a subject list, evolution of formats and procedures and seek information from forest departments and other agencies and put them on Forest Data Centre computers in the form of hypertext pages and online databases.
This phase can also attempt to link many forestry sites in the country (and globally) that already have Internet connectivity and agree to join the information network.. Phase 1 can also envisage providing data on areas of interest on Compact Disks to various institutions in the country where there is poor Internet connectivity.
Phase 2 could involve providing technical, equipment and training assistance to participating forest departments and institutions in India such that they can themselves regulate and manage information from their respective web sites while still being part of the National Data Center Network. Essentially this phase will be a technology transfer phase where data management capacities will be built at participating institutions in India. Information of common and national interest will reside on Data Center Computers while other information pertaining to state FD's would be established at state FD HQ's. A schematic outlay of the nature of connectivity that the proposed National Forest Data Centre can provide is shown in figure 4.
As Internet connectivity in India is growing rapidly, the NFDC proposes to fundamentally exploit the Internet as a connecting mechanism for various partner institutions. As the system can visualize it to be net based and not proposes to use any proprietary connectivity mechanisms between partners, information dissemination can have a very wide reach. It can also ensure easy and instant availability of information to users.
To summarize the current scenario, it can be said that at present, forestry information collection and dissemination in India lacks a national integrative perspective. There are no common formats for information exchange between institutions and no established mechanisms for partnerships. Information is scattered with various institutions and lacks a robust quality and credibility check mechanism. As there is no clear demarcation of information areas between institutions due to the lack of a holistic national plan, there is considerable overlap on subject areas on which information is being collected. Objectives of information collection are also not clearly specified.
In conclusion therefore, it is felt that there is an urgent need for the forestry sector in India to organize its information collection and dissemination activities in a unifying umbrella and work out mechanisms of information exchange and information generation. Unless this is done, information collection and utilization in India will continue to lack focus and will fail to support any specific planning and management objectives.
References
IIFM (2000): Report of the National task Force on SFM, July 2000, Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal, India.
ITinFM ( 2000): Status of IT in Forest Departments, Dec 1999 -Jan 2000 Issue, Published (electronic) by Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal, India
MOEF (2000): Ministry of Environment and Forests Annual Report 1999-2000, MOEF Delhi.
Prasad, R., S. Raghavan, B.R. Phukan and B. Joshi (1999) (Eds.): Proceedings of the National Technical Workshop on evolving C & I for SFM in India , 21-23 January 1999, Indian Institute of Forest Management , Bhopal , India .
Rathore,C.S. (1999): Information Technology in Forest Management : An Indian Perspective proceedings of the First National Seminar on IT in Forest Management, 28-30 April 2000, Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal, India.
