Tropical forests are ecosystems and also an important natural resource, both locally and globally.Some functions of tropical forests are: productive (economic), protection (ecological), psychological and religious, as well as tourism and education. Tropical forest decreases very rapidly during the past three decades and the rapid destruction of tropical forests is the highest in the world.
The factors driving tropical deforestation vary from country to country, but basically can be grouped into three: socio-economic factors, including population growth, economic growth, poverty, physical and environmental factors,include the proximity of rivers and roads, distance to downtown, topography, soil fertility, and government policies, including policies in agriculture, forestry, etc.
Planning and management of forest resources that are absolutely necessary both to maintain continuity. For that, they need adequate information that can be used by decision makers, including spatial information.Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Remote Sensing (RS) and Global Positioning System (GPS) is a three-spatial technology is very useful. Most GIS applications for forestry do not include tropical forests, although in this decade the application of GIS for tropical forest has begun to develop.
This is in line with changing trends in the planning and management of tropical forests. Traditionally, most planning purposes is for production purposes, especially wood.Then with the increasing awareness of environmental values in addition to economic advantages it offers, the more forests are managed as an ecological system. Some things are increasingly considered important are: (i) social forestry / community-based forestry, which involves local communities in the management and utilization of forest resources, and promoting social equality, (ii) reforestation and rehabilitation of land degraded or deforested, particularly through the development of industrial tree plantations, (iii) the appointment and management of protection areas and wildlife reserves, and (iv) the use and conservation of non-timber forest products
Changes in forest management objectives are accompanied by changes in the planning process.The tendency of the planning process is the change in approach from the top down and bottom-up became centralized and decentralized.Along with the communities living around forests, NGOs and the public have the opportunity to provide a higher participation in the planning process and decision making. Therefore, transparency and openness in decision-making increases.In addition, coordination and cooperation of inter-and intra-organization become more effective and more and more sectors and disciplines involved. Along with these trends, the use of information, including indigenous knowledge, improved decision making.
In particular, we will discuss the latter point, which is increasingly peningkatnya use and forestry information needs, both in quantity The more complicated the process of decision making in various aspects of forest management create a need for more essential information.
Information can be viewed as a basic input from policy formulation, planning, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation.The absence of withdrawal and no information could be fatal to the program and tropical forestry projects.
Improving deficiencies in the use and management of information should be a top priority in developing countries.Capacity to collect and process relevant data should be developed.Since most data relevant to forest management refers to the spatial distribution, GIS is a tool that is very helpful.
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