FRA 2010 NEWS 11

Welcome

Welcome to the eleventh issue of the FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment E-Newsletter, the FRA News.

In this issue, you will find updates on the FRA process, remote sensing survey and special studies. There are also important updates on the forest product statistics, on forest- related meetings, publications and news regarding the staff of the FRA secretariat.

Contents

  1. A message from Ken MacDicken
  2. The 11th meeting of the FRA Advisory Group
  3. The remote sensing survey
  4. Special studies
  5. Forest product statistics
  6. The Global Teak Survey
  7. Meetings
  8. Publications
  9. Staffing news

1. A message from Ken MacDicken

Mette’s departure leaves big shoes to fill! It goes without saying that the large volume of hard work put in by national reporting teams, national correspondents, authors, FRA staff and reviewers resulted in an excellent FRA 2010 report. Taking that achievement forward for 2015 is a huge undertaking and a challenge that is at the same time daunting and exciting! I look forward to working together with you in organizing and preparing the FRA 2015 report.
As this newsletter goes to press we are working to prepare the first long-term FRA strategy, which will guide FRA 2015 and future reports with the hope that we can find clear pathways for continuous improvement. We are soon to start work on an online reporting system that should help national reporting teams input and retrieve data much more efficiently than in the past, with error checking and basic analyses built into a robust system. The Remote Sensing Survey is preparing for a report due to be released by mid-November 2011 – a report that should demonstrate a Landsat sampling approach that will be available for country planning and reporting processes over the coming years.
I hope all of you will participate in some way in the FRA long-term strategy process. We will make drafts in progress available for review and input and hope that everyone will feel encouraged to contribute. Working together I am sure we can produce a useful, practical and visionary strategy for the future of FRA as a tool to improve forest management and stewardship. 

All the best,
Ken ([email protected])   


2. The 11th meeting of the FRA Advisory Group

The eleventh meeting of the FAO Advisory Group on Global Forest Resources Assessments is scheduled to take place next June (20-22) in Rome. The meeting is intended to provide inputs on key elements of the long-term strategy, the Remote Sensing Survey and preparations for FRA 2015.

This will be the first meeting of the Advisory Group with its new composition and we would like to thank once again all the outgoing members for the support provided to the FRA process over the last many years, and to provide a warm welcome the new members of the FRA 2015 Advisory Group.

More information about the FRA Advisory Group can be found at: http://www.fao.org/forestry/fra/ag/en/. 

3. The remote sensing survey   

Since the beginning of 2011, the RSS team has completed an additional land use training/validation workshop in Dakar Senegal, involving Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Chad and Togo. http://www.fao.org/forestry/fra/55919/en/.
Three additional workshops (Eastern Europe, CIS countries and Sudan) will be held in May.

The team has also met the members of the Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale (ISPRA) who committed to do the validation for Italy. The database has been defined and built and is being populated right now.

Participants to the Western Africa national expert validation of forest land-use for the Global Remote Sensing Survey

4. Special studies

Forest Degradation
Draft guidelines on measuring forest degradation have been developed. The draft documents can be found on the forest degradation webpage: http://www.fao.org/forestry/cpf/forestdegradation/en/

In order to ensure that the guidelines cover all aspects of forest degradation, there will be another round of editing and review. We are working to finalize this material for publication later in the year, and we will be looking for reviewers, who may be available to comment on the material as of 1 June, 2011.

5. Forest products statistics

Forest products statistics on production and trade in 2009 have been released and are available online at: http://faostat.fao.org/site/626/default.aspx.

6. Global Survey on Teak

The FAO Forestry Department, in cooperation with the teak information network (TEAKNET) is launching a Survey on Teak.

The Survey aims to investigate the status and trends in teak forest development and to assist in improving formulation of policies, preparing outlook studies and undertaking planning, management, monitoring and reporting. It will be based on questionnaires to be sent to FRA National Correspondents of about 70 selected countries around the world.

The list of the selected countries is available at: http://www.fao.org/countries/en/. Countries included in the list that won’t have received the questionnaire by May 2011, or countries, not included in the list, wishing to participate to the Survey, are advised to contact: Alberto Del Lungo ([email protected]), Lucia Cherubini ([email protected]), Walter Kollert ([email protected]).

A semi-natural Teak plantation in Southern India

The results of the Survey will be the subject of the international conference to be held in Costa Rica, from 31st October to 5th November 2011.

7. Meetings

Remote sensing workshops
The next Remote Sensing Survey land cover and land use training/review and revision workshops are scheduled as follows:
-Eastern European countries: 16-20 May, Budapest.

Exploring the Forest-Poverty Link: New Research Findings
The Center for International Forestry Research and the Poverty Environment Network (CIFOR-PEN) and its partners are organizing a two-day science workshop at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, United Kingdom from 13 to 14 June 2011. The workshop aims to present and critically review up-to-date research findings on the importance of forest/environmental resources to rural livelihoods and poverty alleviation. For more information: http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/pen/UEA-science-workshop.

Counting on the Environment: The Contribution of Forests to Rural Livelihoods
CIFOR is organizing a global forum on the role of environmental income & forests in rural livelihoods & poverty alleviation, with the aim to strengthen the case for institutionalizing data collection of previously 'hidden' environmental income. The conference will take place on the 15 June 2011 in London. For more information: http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/pen/_ref/london-conference.

Present and future role of FOREST resources in the socio-economic development of RURAL AREAS
This two-days congress aims at analyzing, describing and getting acquainted with the actions provided for forests and for the forest sector by Rural Development. The congress will take place in Rome, from 23 to 24 June 2011. For more information: http://www.reterurale.it/romaforest2011.

8. Publications

The FRA 2010 Main report is now also available in Arabic!
See: http://www.fao.org/forestry/fra/fra2010/en/.

Copies of the English, Spanish, Russian and Chinese version have been sent out to contributors to FRA 2010. If you have not yet received your copy, please contact: [email protected]

Copies in Arabic, will be distributed shortly to the Arabic-speaking contributors. 


9. Other staffing news

Congratulations to Tomasz Sylwester Juszczak a national from Poland, who has been appointed as Forestry Officer for Forest Policy and Institutional Information.
Marieke Sandker, a national from the Netherlands, has joined the FRA Remote Sensing team in April as a consultant to help harmonize the validated data.  

Welcome Marieke and Tomasz! 

last updated:  Monday, June 13, 2011