Resource information
The Global Forest Resources Assessment Update 2005 was specially mandated by the Committee on Forestry (COFO) during its meeting in 2003, where member countries endorsed recommendations from an Expert Consultation held in the Kotka, Finland in 2002 (Kotka IV). For this purpose all countries have been requested to provide national reports to FAO during 2004. As in previous global assessments, FRA 2005 relies on contributions by countries and a network of National Correspondents to FRA has been established. According to the FRA 2000, it was recognised that poor data quality – or a complete lack of data in some cases – of information in the Caribbean Region. The Commission recommended that FAO provide assistance to countries in order to strengthen their capacities to update national inventories through technical workshops; harmonise their approaches; and to share understanding on forest terminology and methods of resources assessment. Accordingly, FAO organised a training course for national correspondents on Assessing and Monitoring Forest Land Use and Changes at FAO Headquarters in Rome, Italy, 17-21 November 2003. This has been followed by a series of regional workshops worldwide. The workshop in Kingston, Jamaica, which was aimed primarily at English-speaking Caribbean countries, has been part of a sequence of different regional workshops in other regions, two in Africa, one in Asia and South Pacific, Latin American countries and Spanish speaking Caribbean countries, and Russian speaking countries. Fifteen NCs from 21 countries some of them representing more than one country participated in this workshop, hosted by Forestry Department of Jamaica/ . The agenda of the workshop is found in Appendix 1 and a list of participants in Appendix 2. A list of background documents for the workshop can be found in Appendix 3.
