2. Current Status of National Forestry Statistics related to wood products

The types of information collected related to wood products include, the amount of different wood products produced such as:

Volume of round wood produced,

The volume of industrial round wood produced in the form of logs which could be either over bark or under bark and is measured in cubic meters,

Data on the import of forest products

The demand and supply of fuel wood in cubic meters which usually comes to the market place in stacks, bundles, baskets and head loads

Paper products produced and data on the amount of import of pulp wood which are measured in metric tons

Volume of sawn wood produced which is measured in cubic meters and data on the amount of veneer sheets produced locally and imported

The volume of wood based panels produced which include veneer sheets, plywood, particle board and fibre board measured in cubic meters

The amount of money spent on importation of different forest products

The types of wood based industries and their capacity, status and recovery percentage etc.

Effective management of the forest resources sector requires reliable, consistent and timely flow of forestry data and information.

With the setting up of regional administration, the bulk of forest products information is currently generated by the regional agricultural bureau. As it stands now, the federal ministry of agriculture apart from providing technical advice to regional agricultural bureau remains to be a liaison between regions and a third party.

The data production system in the country is decentralised with all regional offices of agriculture collecting data in uncoordinated manner. Currently, the practices used for data collection are not systematic and uniform. Different units are used for the measurement of similar forest products. Some of the weaknesses are

lack of standardisation of formats for data collection

lack of well documented instructions to accompany data collection formats

insufficient training

poor data handling after collection

poor access to any existing information system.

The methodology employed in data collection differs depending on the type of forest product and the objective of the data collection as indicated below.

2.2.1. For fuel wood:

Data acquisition method employed is through household survey which measures the amount of fuelwood consumed by a house hold which is then extrapolated to estimate total consumption by the local community. There is also another method used to estimate fuel wood production through intake survey which measures all the fuel wood entering to a given market place and making a direct measurement. The data that is recorded in the FAO yearbook for 1993 to 1996 is based on per capita demand estimation and does not reflect the actual production. The actual production data from 1990 to 1992 is documented at the national level as indicated in the table below. However, after decentralisation, it was not possible to get any data concerning fuel wood and round wood. Therefore, it could be helpful for the FAO to project based on the information given on the past trends in wood fuel, charcoal and round wood production which is based on actual consumption.

Table 8. Consumption of fuel wood and round wood in cubic meters (in 000)

Year Product type	1990	1991	1992
Fuel wood	109301	127678	114788
Round wood	52084	50012	36650
Poles	1530	6080	8283

2.2.2. Industrial round wood:

These are collected by direct measurement in the field and compiled by local experts who indicate the volume of logs harvested with reference to logging site. The source of information for round wood used is the cutting permits or pass permits, which are collected at checkpoints and aggregated for total volume of logs transported. The measurement methodologies is at the point of harvesting from the forest and at checkpoints that compare the volume indicated on the pass permit with the direct measurement at the checkpoints.

2.2.3. Sawn wood production:

Data is collected from mill production sheets, which could be by public or private sawmill owners and is obtained through questionnaire enquiry. Some times the volume is estimated from the round wood inputs or the volume of wood delivered to the sawmills based on the recovery percentage in saw milling which helps to convert the log input volume into sawn wood output volume.

2.2.4. Wood-based panels:

These products include veneer, plywood, particleboard and fibreboard the data of which is collected from production records through questionnaire enquiry.

2.2.5. Pulp and paper:

The information is collected from production records through request to the factories.