This subject paper will give a background and the objectives for National Forest Assessments (NFA), assuming NFA¿s are a potent tool to influence or monitor policy processes. It will also discuss how the policies in countries affect the NFA-process.

Furthermore the paper will describe the past and present role of NFA and the outlined future trends in NFA. The synergistic relationship between ecological, economic and social functions of forests will be considered, e.g. investments opportunities in countries and the need of having a cost benefit analysis in the NFA.

It will also treat questions like:

  • Why have things not changed, i.e. why is important information still missing and why is existing information not used?
  • Are the politicians¿ interested in solid data and expert estimations?
  • Is more information needed?
  • What issues should the NFA avoid?
To a large extent this paper builds on (Janz & Persson 2002).