National forest inventory (NFI) is a fundamental pillar of a multipurpose National forest monitoring system (NFMS) as it provides accurate information about the extent, distribution, composition and condition of forests and woodlands, as well as the changes taking place in these areas through time. The diversity of species, trees density, increment and removals of growing stock, biomass and carbon are all among the main attributes obtained from NFIs. These attributes are essential for measuring indicators on sustainable forest management, biodiversity, climate change mitigation, and developing and monitoring policies and guidance that support the sustainable provision of forest-related goods and services.

Field measurements from NFI also provide data on land use and land cover. This information together with data obtained from remote sensing is the basis for the production of robust estimates and maps on deforestation, forest degradation, as well as for the restoration of natural ecosystems, degraded lands and productive systems.

Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is a region that is well-advanced in designing, planning, institutionalizing and implementing NFIs. Currently, 23 Latin American and Caribbean countries have an NFI in place. Considering the most frequent cycle of LAC NFIs is five years, currently, two countries are implementing the third cycle, eight countries are implementing their second cycle, eight are implementing the first cycle, and five are designing an NFI for the first time.

In July 2017, through a joint initiative of the Brazilian Forest Service, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE: Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza), a workshop to exchange knowledge and experiences on NFIs was organized in Manaus (Brazil) with the involvement of Amazonian and Mesoamerican countries. The exchange gave countries the opportunity to both learn about regional progress on NFI implementation and to foster further collaboration. The participants highlighting the importance of harmonizing various NFI elements to obtain comparable data, reduce ambiguity and improve the transparency of forest information for effective national, regional and international forest-related reporting. The second meeting held in 2018 in Turrialba, Costa Rica, focused on consolidation of harmonization needs and initiated the construction of a regional network of NFI managers and experts in Latin America and the Caribbean. This collaboration resulted in an initiative to develop a comprehensive reference book on the harmonization of NFIs in the region. FAO and the Institute of Agricultural and Food Research and Technology of Spain (INIA: Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria) provide the technical assistance.

This initiative has strengthened and promoted alliances with other networks such as ENFIN and NAFC. Together a the technical session was organized "Forests without borders: cooperation and harmonization of multinational forest inventories to improve sustainable development", held during the XXV IUFRO World Congress in Curitiba, Brazil (2019), with participation from Brazil, Ecuador, Chile, Finland, ENFIN, NAFC, FAO and CATIE among others. During the session, challenges and lessons learned on NFI harmonization were shared.

The reference book aims to collect, review and illustrate the experiences of the countries in Latin America and the Caribbean regarding the implementation of NFIs as well as to identify commonalities and differences in the definitions, designs, methods and estimation protocols applied in the countries of this region. Additionally, the reference book will introduce the ongoing harmonization process of selected key indicators, using country reports available through FAO’s Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) web platform. The development process of the publication will help create stronger linkages between FRA and REDD+ reporting.

The preparation process of this publication expects:

• Enhance the capacities to produce harmonized and robust national and regional forestry-related data.
• Improve the visibility of NFIs, facilitating their use in political decision-making processes.
• Enhance comparability of NFI information among Latin American and Caribbean countries, through the harmonization process.
• Facilitate the development, implementation and monitoring of regional forestry strategies in Latin America and the Caribbean.
• Promote the transparency of forest related data on forest issues that are part of international policy agendas, such as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, and the Global Forest Resources Assessment of FAO.
• Promote and facilitate dialogue and exchange of technical and scientific knowledge between different countries of the region and with other NFIs networks as the European National Forest Inventory Network (ENFIN) and the Forest Monitoring and Inventory group from the North American Forestry Commission (NAFC).
• Provide recommendations for the next FRA reporting round in 2025 based on the first results of the NFI harmonization process in LAC.

Currently 15 countries are working on chapters that are related to their country’s NFI experience, which will be the core of the publication. Other content will be related to the relevance of the NFIs to the international framework, harmonization experiences in other world regions, the results of the first experience on harmonization process in LAC, and new challenges related transparency and future NFI data requirements.

It is expected the harmonization process will take part of a side event at the next XV World Forestry Congress which will serve as a valuable platform to share the preliminary findings. The book will be published in the third quarter of 2021.

For more information, please contact the editorial team:

Carla Ramírez-Zea, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. [email protected]

Iciar Alberdi, Institute of Agricultural and Food Research and Technology of Spain. [email protected]

Joberto de Freitas, Federal University of Amazonas, Brazil. [email protected]

Carlos Bahamondez, Forest Research Institute of Chile. [email protected]

Related articles:

Pandemic Lessons: Open Data for Forest and Climate Action: http://sdg.iisd.org/commentary/guest-articles/pandemic-lessons-open-data-for-forest-and-climate-action/

Open and transparent: forest data setting the course under the Paris Agreement: https://www.globallandscapesforum.org/glf-news/open-and-transparent-forest-data-setting-the-course-under-the-paris-agreement/

How a Robust National Forest Monitoring System Can Boost Transparency under the Paris Agreement: https://www.un-redd.org/post/2019/11/27/how-a-robust-national-forest-monitoring-system-can-boost-transparency-under-the-paris-agr

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