Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020: Guidelines and Specifications

FAO has been monitoring the world’s forests at 5 to 10-year intervals since 1946. The recent Global Forest Resources Assessments (FRA) have been produced every five years in an attempt to provide a consistent approach to describing the world’s forests and how they are changing. During this period, the scope of FRA has evolved from timber-focused inventories to more holistic assessments that seek to respond to increasing information needs related to all of the aspects of sustainable forest management. At the same time, countries role in the FRA data collection process has been strengthened and the country reports developed by the National Correspondents, their alternates and other national contributors have become the cornerstone of the process. FRA 2020 reporting has been adapted both in terms of scope and reporting periodicity to better respond to recent development in the international forest policy arena, such as the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, United Nations Strategic Plan for Forests 2017-2030 (UNSPF) and the Paris agreement. Furthermore, the reporting content has been streamlined and a new on-line reporting Platform developed, to make the reporting more efficient and to decrease countries’ reporting burden. All these changes have been made with the support of international experts consulted during the Seventh Expert Consultation on FRA, held in Joensuu, Finland in June 2017. This document intends to support the FRA 2020 National Correspondents in their work of preparation of the FRA 2020 Country reports by providing information about the country reporting process, including an introduction to the new FRA 2020 on-line reporting platform and specifications of the FRA 2020 national reporting tables.