Forests Sourcebook - HCV Resource Network

ANNEX 7.3A
ELEMENTS FOR TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR DEVELOPING A NATIONAL SYSTEM FOR
FOREST MONITORING AND INFORMATION
Background. A national system for forest monitoring and
information will enable a decision-making environment
where reliable, accurate, and current information on forest
and timber resources and related decisions are continuously
and publicly available, and where authorities can take
actions upon this information to combat illegal logging and
strengthen law enforcement.
Specific objectives. The specific objective of a national
system for forest monitoring and information is to establish
the conditions for transparency in the forest sector by
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making relevant, reliable, accurate, and up-to-date forest
sector information continuously available to decision
makers as well as making key information publicly accessible;
and
assisting decision makers in better decision and policy
making based on daily use of better-managed information.
There are several steps to consider before such an activity
can proceed. These include the following:
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Create and mobilize political support to generate continued
incentives for action and establish a culture of transparency.
This may involve stakeholder consultations to
build a constituency and attain official recognition.
Make use of the best available forest monitoring and communication
technologies and existing capacity in forest
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research and related technical fields in nongovernment sectors
to increase effectiveness and reduce cost. To do this
effectively, it would be important to collect and compile
existing forest-related data into a GIS database, to assess
the availability and quality of forest data, and to identify
data gaps. This should include a review of the new
remote sensing–based forest cover change mapping
approaches being developed by a number of organizations.
With this information, a needs assessment can be
carried out.
Focus on improving high-impact forest sector decision
making to address the most critical issues and ensure
continued momentum for action. This will require prioritizing
information and decision support activities that
are (i) most important for enabling policy change and
(ii) most likely to rapidly result in successful outcomes.
Enable public scrutiny and promote clean government.
This will require (i) developing a clear information disclosure
policy and operational information disclosure
mechanism to ensure public access to relevant information,
(ii) training civil society to use this information,
and (iii) gathering NGO and industry feedback to
improve the policy.
Upon completion of these steps, the terms of reference
for this activity can use elements of the sample TOR for
FMIS (see Annex 7.2A to note 7.2, Forest Management
Information Systems).
NOTE 7.3: SPATIAL MONITORING OF FORESTS 283