“FORWOOD“

“FORWOOD”

Forest resource assessments provide essential information for understanding the extent of forest resources, their condition, management and uses. They provide information on development, changes or progress in forests and forestry required for decision-making domestically and internationally. - i.e., the use of the resources.

PNG commenced forest resource assessment before WW 2 to gather the necessary information. PNGAF Mag 9 B # 5-A describes the history of PNG’s national forest assessments till 1975. PNGAF Mag 9B #5-B describes the development in scope and methods. It traces the development of quality control in terms of statistical significance and objectivity. This enabled progress to be confirmed. It is essential that measurements and observations need to be stable so that comparable time series can be established.

The earliest national inventories were established to find out what utilisable timber was available. The typical objective was to find out how much wood of commercial sizes and species was available for exploitation. Major issues such as the expansion of agriculture into forest areas and the role of forests in poverty alleviation were not well studied.

Even though assessment techniques have advanced greatly since WW2, field work is still essential to ascertain the attributes of the forest resource.

The Department of Forests through its cadre of foresters, botanists, research scientists as entomologists and fungi specialists together with timber specialist and experts in non-forest product uses, ensured its forest assessments became more complex as they incorporated more forest benefits. These assessments addressed all the benefits of the forests, ranging from biological diversity to pulpwood. They considered the full range of beneficiaries, ranging from local land users to the global population.

Over time, the Department of Forests has collated its forest assessment information into the PNG National Forest Plans3. Forester Dave Num recalls preparing the first National Forest Plan at the time Provincial Governments were being established. These plans are designed to cover a much wider range of forest benefits than earlier assessments. Deforestation was considered important, but interest in conservation issues had grown and topics such as biodiversity, protected areas and forest fires were also included. Further developments would include providing information about productive aspects, such as overall wood supply, forest plantations, trees outside forests and non-wood forest products.

From the 1970’s, a belief spread that field inventories were no longer required because remote sensing would give all the information needed (FAO, 1968). There is currently a growing awareness that the strong focus on remote sensing in forest assessments may have side-tracked the discipline. A return to field inventories to supply policy-relevant national information seems to be appearing.

3 Personal communication David Num TPNG Forests 1966 to 1979.