| European
Tropical Forest Research Network |
By Jelle Maas
Low Forest Cover Countries
Definitions of Low Forest Cover are presented in the paper 'Definition of Low Forest Cover (LFC)', developed by UNEP and IUFRO, and coordinated by Gyde Lund. The paper is available at http://home.att.net/~gklund/LFCreport.html.
The Global Land Cover Facility of the University of Maryland (http://glcf.umiacs.umd.edu/) provides the opportunity to estimate current forest and treeland cover by using remote sensing tools.
Information on environmental legislation and policies in Tunisia is given at http://www.tunisiaonline.com/html/environment.html.
http://www.arab.net/ provides access to numerous links and information to countries like Algeria, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. All countries with less than 10% forest cover. Other similar sources of information are http://www.raitnet.net/raitnet/index.htm and http://www.africaonline.com/.
The Regional Wood Energy Development Programme in Asia (http://www.rwedp.org/ index.html) provides information on forest cover and wood resources in low forest cover countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Also Australia can be considered as a low forest cover country with less than 10% of its area under forest cover. Some interesting sites on Australia's forest resources are:
The University of Stellenbosch in South Africa (http://www.sun.ac.za/) has several departments devoted to natural resource research such as the department of Forest Science and the department of nature conservation.
The aim of the Institute for Commercial Forestry Research (ICFR at http://www.icfrnet.unp.ac.za/) is to serve the South African forestry industry by undertaking relevant research with the objective of supplying commercial timber producers with information required to optimise the beneficial use of forestry resources in South Africa.
The Tropical Silviculture Unit of the University of Helsinki is involved in organising a workshop on dry-land rehabilitation in Sudan from 27 October to 4 November 2000. The Tropical Silviculture Unit is the Finnish National Focal Point for ETFRN. Information on the workshop is available on the Tropical Silviculture Unit's website: http://honeybee.helsinki.fi/tropic/. The website also provides information on research projects in a number of low forest cover countries includingTanzania, Sudan, and China. The Unit is also involved in research projects in Costa Rica, Indonesia and Ghana.
Other
Forest Flash is a Swiss initiative to promote the exchange of information on the interactions between People, Trees and Forests. The site contains interactive databases on events, literature and personal contributions in German, French and English. http://forestflash.intercooperation.ch/.
The World Resource Institute, a non profit organization based in Washington DC, has put the forests on the web. At http://www.globalforestwatch.org/ an overview is given of the current situation of the world''s forests. Global Forest Watch is a unique combination of satellite imagery, geographic information systems (GIS), mapping software, the Internet and on-the-ground observation.
The Patagonian Andes Forest Research and Extension Center (CIEFAP) is a public, regional institution, devoted to the study of Forestry based in Argentina. At its website (http://www.ciefap.org.ar/english.htm) details can be found on its activities and objectives.
The Climate Change Secretariat recently launched their ‘public' library website. The objective of the website is to link users of climate change information to resource providers. A key new feature are the links to the websites of all those involved in the UNFCCC process including: Parties of the Convention, Observer States, Accredited NGOs, IGOs and UN and specialized agencies. Of special interest is the link to online resources such as: glossaries, newsletters, annual reports, full-text documents, climate change search engines and many other electronic tools. To locate the Library website, go to the UNFCCC website at: http://www.unfccc.int and click on ‘Resources'.
Source: Forest Information Update, 26 June 2000
ATROFI is a meta-database of historical tropical and sub-tropical forest inventory datasets held in the UK that has been developed under a DFID Forest Research Programme project (R7277). The database contains basic information of the location, extent and protocols used in each inventory along with contact details of the data holders and owners. The intention is to make historical (1950s to 1990s) forest datasets available to researchers and others interested in tropical forests. The following data types are included:
ATROFI is available at: http://www.atrofi-uk.com
Source: S107 Tropical Silviculture Newsletter, May-June 2000