This section introduces the purposes of the document, provides background of global Forest Resource Assessments, presents objectives of country report and finally the process of development of information at national level.
This working paper presents country report of South Africa as a part of input to global Forest Resource Assessment (FRA) process of FAO especially to FRA 2005, an update to FRA 2000 (FAO, 2001). It contains complete information on all the sixteen global reporting tables and on the six thematic areas following “Guidelines for Country Reporting” (FRA Working Paper No. 71a).
Global forest resources assessments have been carried out by FAO since 1948 that is practically since FAO was created. The mandate for such assessments stems both from the basic statues of FAO (FAO 2003a), and to specific guidance given by member countries, most significantly at sessions of the Committee on Forestry “COFO” (FAO 2003a).
The Kotka IV expert consultation in July 2002 (FAO 2003b) defined the scope and approach of future FRAs and recommended that they should be structured along the framework of “Criteria” common to the nine regional processes on Criteria and Indicators (C&I) for Sustainable Forest Management (SFM). This recommendation has been reinforced by the international conference on C&I for SFM in February 2003 (CICI, 2003) and COFO 2003 (FAO 2003b). This development represents a strong move to establish linkages between politically defined C&I and technically specified FRA. This helps to define the objective of the global FRA more clearly to make it possible to review sustainability of forests at the global level.
The objective for the country reporting in FRA 2005 are three fold. First is to produce by 2005 a comprehensive update and refinement of FRA 2000, structured around the core set of global variables and the six common thematic areas (criteria) for sustainable forest management focussing on the trend information. The second is to involve national institutions, experts and other stakeholders in the collection, analyses and validation of national information to secure national ownership of results. The third is to report all information transparently and with complete documentation and analyses of the source data.
Accordingly, this country report follows the format of a working paper as suggested by FAO in its “Guidelines for Country Reporting”(FRA Working Paper 71a) and has following two distinct elements and associated reporting steps.
Table 2: Two Steps in Country Reporting
Reporting step |
Contents |
1. National data for Global tables |
National Reporting Tables containing national data, transformation of national data to global data tables, preferably electronic, containing source references, source data, and reclassifications leading into estimates for the country for each global table. |
2. Country report by Thematic Areas |
Short report following a predefined outline that builds on the defined Thematic Areas (Criteria) of SFM. The report shall contain additional information relevant in the country for each Theme. |
The principle to combine sustainable development and management of forest with their conservation in South Africa is enshrined within the National Forest Act (NFA No.84 of 1998). The Act mandates the Minister to monitor the forest according to national Criteria and Indicators and report every three years to Parliament on matters derived from monitoring. Reporting obligations are not only confined to monitoring forests for sustainable management and policy review, but extend to other obligations such as the Human Rights Commission, National Environmental Management Act, global FRA and climate change.
The Department of Water Affairs and Forestry initiated the first National Forest Inventory, National Classification Systems for woodlands and natural forest as well as development of criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management in 2000. National data for natural forest was obtained through satellite images procured from different sources whilst data for woodlands was obtained from the National Land Cover survey. Information on plantations has been collected, through the use of questionnaires, annually over a number of years. This commercial round wood timber statistics is published annually by the Department.
This National Reporting Table first presents global terms and definitions followed by the national terms and definitions, national data and then transformation to match global specification for four classes (Forest, Other Wooded land, Other Land with Trees, other Land) as defined by global FRA.
