How to know more about forests? Supply and use of information for forest policy

There are serious shortcomings in the supply and use of information needed for policy making in the forestry sectors of developing countries. The main weakness is the failure to connect the supply to demand. Much information has been gathered not because it has been needed but because donors were willing to fund inventories, on traditional lines, that were vaguely thought to be potentially useful. Information is usually inadequate on topics such as actual removal of wood and other products, or the usefulness of the forests, especially to the local people. Not enough provision is made for continuous inventories to the necessarily high standards that are needed to measure change. The way in which remote sensing has been used has often been heavily influenced by the facilities that are on offer, rather than the potential usefulness of the results. It suggested, for example, that the resources would be better used on the assessment of change in land use and forest cover than on elaborate cartography.