TROPIS, the Tree Growth and Permanent Plot Information System, contains five elements: (1) a network of people willing to share permanent plot data and tree growth information, serviced by newsletters and information sources hosted at http://www.cgnet.org/cifor/research/tropis.html (or available from CIFOR), (2) an index of people and institutions holding permanent plot data, (3) a database management system to assist more efficient data management, (4) a system to facilitate site-matching by identifying comparable sites and allowing foreign data to be used when no local growth information exists, and (5) an inference system to allow growth estimates to be made in the absence of empirical data. The index or metadatabase contains references to 12,000 plots with 3,000 species provided by 100 contributors, and is growing at about 1,000 plots per month. Searches of the database are welcomed, and may be directed to the author.

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The protection regime instituted under the New Zealand Crown Forest Assets Act 1989 was established with two objectives in mind. First, to ensure Maori grievances relating to Crown forest land were adequately redressed; and second, to enable the forestry industry to develop by guaranteeing security of tenure. The second objective has clearly been achieved. The focus of this research is maybe be on a problem uniquely found in New Zealand but without an understanding of this situation by Pacific Rim forest investors, problems are bound to unnecessarily emerge.

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In some areas of Myanmar (formerly Burma), trees are planted amongst agricultural crops in hill-farms (taungya). This "taungya system" is one method of restoring tree cover and can also be regarded as a forerunner of agroforestry. The system is widely believed to have originated in the Tharrawaddy forest division of Myanmar, but the actual location of its origin is likely to be the Kaboung forest area. The taungya system was first devised by Dr. DIETRICH BRANDIS, an early German botanist-turned-forester in Myanmar, in the mid-1800s after he observed the taungya of the Karen hill people. Taungya teak plantations expanded in the Tharrawaddy forest division from 1869 as teak grows well there and the facilities for teak timber extraction are good. However, the annual establishment rate in Tharrawaddy has fluctuated greatly. The establishment of taungya plantations has gone through three periods of growth and decline. The growth phase of the first period began in 1869 when Imperial foresters succeeded in employing the hill Karen to plant teak in their taungyas, and was followed by a decline from 1906 when the scattered taungya plantations became difficult to manage. The second period began from 1918-19 when concentrated regeneration under the Uniform System was introduced into the division. This period's decline started in 1930 and was caused by the farmers' revolution. The third period began in 1948, but the thirty years to 1979 were politically and socially unstable, so there was very little planting throughout this time. The growth in plantation establishment began in early 1980 when the government focused on reforestation to boost timber production, but its decline came in the late 1980s and was primarily caused by socioeconomic and government policy changes. Higher wages for taungya workers and more productive agricultural techniques for taungya crops are now necessary if taungya plantation management is to be successful in the future.

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The impact of different probabilities of avoidable stand loss on the optimal rotation age and the corresponding EPVs of aspen stands in Minnesota is examined in a geographic information system (GIS) framework. The monetary costs associated with reducing such probabilities over time are also estimated. Aspen stands were indentified as the species to be examined because it is the most dominant cover type in Minnesota and provides almost half of the statewide timber harvest. Integrating GIS technology with the aspen model highlighted spatial components of the overall analysis. The model output combined with the spatial data, provided information about potential future investments that can be used to protect aspen stands from such catastrophes as fire and disease. Given the current shortages as well as the age class imbalance in aspen supply and relative increase in aspen demand over time in Minnesota, the need to invest in protection of this cover type is further enhanced.

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We applied the discriminant analysis method (DAM), which was originally proposed for image analysis, to stratifying a forest stand into some strata and discussed its validity. The results showed that DAM has the following merits ; 1) The forest stand can be stratified statistically. ; 2) The number of strata can be arbitrarily selected. ; 3) The optimum number of strata to be stratified can be estimated. These features make DAM one of the most effective methods for analyzing forest stratification.

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