Forest resources appraisals on a global and regional basis are a part of FAO's mandate. The Article 1 of its Constitution states that: “the Organization shall collect, analyze, interpret and disseminate information relating to nutrition, food and agriculture. In this context the term agriculture and its derivatives include fisheries, marine products, forestry and primary forest products”.
The present report relates to non-tropical developing countries and forms a part of the sixth round of FAO global forest resources assessment with 1990 as year of reference. The assessment has been coordinated and conducted by FAO, Rome, and updates the figures of 1980 assessment published in FAO (1988). It fits into the overall frame of FAO global assessments as shown in Chart 1.
The objectives of the assessment were to:
make an assessment of the forest resources of the non-tropical developing countries for the reference year 1990, and estimate changes that have taken place during 1981–1990;
study the effects of environmental and demographic factors on deforestation and forest degradation;
disseminate the database and the methodology of assessment to the national and international institutions.
Chart 1
Geographical subdivision of the
global assessment
The Assessment was started in September 1992 with funding form France and Netherlands. Besides the multi-donor trust funds, support was provided through the Associate Professional Officer programme by the governments of France (1 officer).
Arrangements were made with the Agency for National Forest Inventory (IFN), in France, for data collection for North Africa and Middle East sub-regions. Data collection for Temperate Asia, South America and Southern Africa sub-regions was organized at FAO HQ with assistance from consultants. The preliminary Project's findings for North Africa and Middle East were presented to the 16th session of the FAO Committee on Mediterranean Forestry Questions “Sylvia Mediterranea” (Larnaca, Cyprus, 13–17 June 1994). The assessment was completed on May 1994 and country briefs are being sent to concerned member governments for comment. The report incorporates comments of countries received by the end of November 1994.
The countries under study lie entirely or for the largest part of their territory, outside the tropical belt and are classified as developing in the UN economic classification. The geographic area under assessment is 2,806 million ha distributed in 28 countries, grouped in 5 sub-regions, as follows:
Northern Africa: Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia
Southern Africa: Lesotho, South Africa, Swaziland
Middle East: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Yemen
Temperate Asia: China, Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea, Republic of Korea, Mongolia
Non Tropical South America: Argentina, Chile, Uruguay
