Das Schweizerische Landesforstinventar aus Sicht einiger Kantone (Essay)

Abstract

The Swiss National Forest Inventory from the perspective of some cantons (essay) Politicians and the general public rightfully expect the forest services to be able to provide information about the state of the forest and to base their policies on sound data. Public interest in the forest and expectations that it will provide certain services are today focussing more on superordinate, regional spatial units. Information above the level of the forest enterprise is becoming increasingly more important and the duties of the forest services have expanded beyond those associated with single forest enterprises. The Swiss National Forest Inventory (NFI) was set up as a national instrument, but is also relevant for the cantons. So far, three inventories have been carried out and the fourth is underway. The cantonal NFI findings have become more relevant during the past 25 years. But what has the NFI really achieved for the cantons? What are its strengths and weaknesses? What risks does the fourth NFI entail with its new, continuous method of data collection and what opportunities does it offer? These questions are addressed here by the authors, who are responsible for forest planning and for contact with the NFI, in the cantons of Aargau, Bern, the Grisons, Ticino and Zurich. The authors work in cantons that have always made above average use of the NFI. All apart from Ticino have made the NFI sampling grid more dense by adding more sampling plots. For these cantons, the NFI has become an indispensable source of basic information. This article does not, therefore, provide a representative picture of how the cantons make use of the NFI, but rather reflects how the NFI could potentially serve the cantons.