A virtual Consultation for National Forest Resources Monitoring and Assessment of Tanzania Mainlandwas organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) in collaboration with Tanzania Forest Services (TFS) Agency), on 5^th of April 2022.

The first-ever comprehensive National Forest Inventory (NFI) in Tanzania, popularly known as National Forestry Resources Monitoring and Assessment (NAFORMA; to be called NAFORMA I in this report), was created to address some of the issues raised in the National Forest Programme. NAFORMA has been a pre-request source of information for different users.

Following NAFORMA I, TFS and stakeholders plan to conduct a second assessment (NAFORMA II) that will assess the current forest status and hence determine changes since NAFORMA I. NAFORMA II aims to address the growing demands of forest data users by applying the latest technological and cost-effective approaches. A need for several technical improvements has also been recognized, including stronger institutionalization, national ownership of the process to ensure its sustainability, better integration of ground and remote sensing information, improved data management, data sharing and information system capacities, and increased use of national forest information by national stakeholders including research and academia.

The objective of this consultation was to present the data collection design options for 2nd biophysical inventory (NAFORMA II) report to stakeholders.

The experience of relocating NAFORMA field plot clusters was presented citing that NAFORMA I was the first comprehensive forestry inventory of Tanzania to generate information for policy development and provide statistics. Problems faced, observations and recommendations were discussed.

Options of sampling designs discussed during this consultation were; 1) NAFORMA 1 design as was with permanent clusters (25% NAFORMA 1 clusters) are remeasured and 75% are sampled according to original stratification. 2) Permanent plots for NAFORMA 1 only with only ¼ of the data would be collected hence more statistical uncertainty compared to NAFORMA 1. 3) NAFORMA 1 design balanced stratification to TFS zones, an intermediate option for 1 and 2- some clusters will be added to option 2.

“NAFORMA II will be able to improve access to data and assessment on Bee resources in Tanzania, and provide recommendations on how to manage these resources sustainably”, said Prof Don Santos Silayo(Conservation Commissioner, TFS).

There were about 25 participants who contributed to the review of the design document prepared by Luke and provided recommendations that will guide the implementation of NAFORMA II.Another consultation will be organized soon to review the NAFORMA II project document