Conducting an Inventory

Abstract

Chapters 9 and 10 have established the background to undertaking an inventory of a forested area. The first practical step in doing so is to establish very clearly, with the forest owner, the objectives of the inventory, to ensure it will achieve whatever the owner has in mind.

Forest owners differ greatly both in the size and nature of their forest holdings and in the purposes for which they own them. At one end of the scale is the farmer, who may own some tens of hectares of forest being used to beautify the farm, as an ‘environmental’ forest or as an investment for retirement. At the other end of the scale are governments or corporations, which own large areas of native and/or plantation forests with a myriad of uses, ranging from timber production to water catchment protection, to wilderness or biodiversity conservation or to recreation for people.