Diapositive 1

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Ca-SIF A French catalogue of information sources
on forest Sandrine Landeau1, Guy Landmann2 and
Damien Maurice1 ECOFOR, Nancy1 and Paris2,
France (landeau_at_gip-ecofor.org)
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Outline

• ECOFOR and its interest in information
• The Ca-SIF project why? with whom? how?
• Links with other catalogues
• Outlook

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Outline

• ECOFOR and its interest in information
• The Ca-SIF project why? with whom? how?
• Links with other catalogues
• Outlook

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ECOFOR identity card

• Federation of 9 research forest management
  institutions - Public interest group
• Fields of interest forest ecosystem functioning,
  tropical forests, forest management, information
• Activities research coordination,
  research-management dialogue, expertise, think
  tank
• Team (7-9 persons)
• Budget 2 M/yr (external funds 62)

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ECOFORs interest in info. management

• Need for reliable information to
• Improve scientific knowledge
• Assess the consequences of an action or an event
• Elaborate planning and management documents
• Difficulties for accessing information
• Lack of visibility, technical and cultural
  obstacles
• Example of the summer 2003 consequences
• gt ECOFOR works at raising awareness and to
  promote common tools

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ECOFORs realizations so far (1/2)

• Surveys and inventories
• Chemins de linformation forestière and Ca-SIF
• Bouquets de flore (vegetation data bases)
• ENFORS (European network for Forest Ecosystem and
  Landscape Research, COST E25)
• Meeting
• from observation of forest ecosystems to
  information on forest (Paris, February 2005)

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ECOFORs realizations so far (2/2)

• Information systems
• SINPA (shared information system for forest
  management at regional level)
• SIEF (information site on forest ecosystem)
• F-ORE-T (long-term Environmental Research
  Observatory on Forests)

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Outline

• ECOFOR and its interest in information
• The Ca-SIF project why? with whom? how?
• Links with other catalogues
• Outlook

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A need for the forest community

• Information on forest is
• Rich
• Multiform
• Scattered
• Poorly known
• gt Need to make an inventory of the available
  information sources, to describe them, to make
  them visible and accessible

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Approach and implementation steps

• Initial step Les chemins de linformation
  forestière
• Survey (2000) and restitution, CD-Rom (2001)
• Satisfaction survey and prospect (2003)
• Partial up-dating (2005)
• Pre-study (2005-2006)
• Stakeholders mobilization ECOFOR members,
  ministries, users and producers (ongoing)
• Dialogue with similar project holders (ongoing)
• Technical development (ongoing)

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The objectives of Ca-SIF

• To know data sets and information sources
  available with metadata

• To describe them with a metadata format which
  allows to collect synthetic, standardized,
  up-to-date and relevant
• To build web-based information system to manage
  and share these metadata
• To make exchanges with other catalogues and IS
  possible, using metadata standards

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• Interoperability
• searching between several metadata bases
• metadata exchange

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The Ca-SIF contents

• Covered topics
• ecosystem functioning,
• production,
• economy,
• forest management,
• tropical and temperate French forests
• 2 types of description
• Information sources
• Organizations involved in information management

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Outline

• ECOFOR and its interest in information
• The Ca-SIF project why? with whom? how?
• Links with other catalogues
• Outlook

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Ca-SIF as a part of global dynamics

• Wealth of data in various fields produced by
  numerous organizations
• Need of data to provide indicators for various
  processes (Natura2000, forest certification,
  etc.)
• Requirement of transparency and availability
  (Aarhus convention, INSPIRE)
• gtVarious initiatives (GFIS, Eumon etc.), at
  various scales, to make the inventory of
  information, to structure and standardize

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Need for consistency

• Compliance to international standards for
  metadata description and for development
• Interoperability of the different systems
• Exchanges with other similar projects (SINP,
  Information System on Nature and Landscape)
• gt Ca-SIF will be as compliant as possible with
  international standards and will develop a strong
  collaboration with other projects in adjacent
  fields

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The sister project SINP

• Part of the French national strategy for
  biodiversity
• Aims ensure the production, the management and
  the storage of biodiversity data, make them
  visible and accessible and make the cooperation
  easier
• First step (February 2007) a simple and free
  available catalogue of environmental data

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The collaboration with SINP

• SINP and Ca-SIF fields of interest are crossing
• SINP focuses on biodiversity while Ca-SIF is
  interested in all types of data on forest
  (economy, production)
• Ca-SIF focuses on forest while SINP covers every
  type of landscapes
• SINP and Ca-SIF calendars are similar
• ECOFOR will collect for Ca-SIF all metadata on
  forest and relevant information for SINP will be
  injected thanks to exchange technologies

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Outline

• ECOFOR and its interest in information
• The Ca-SIF project why? with whom? how?
• Links with other catalogues
• Outlook

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Outlook

• Ca-SIF, a tool for the forest community
• to give visibility to existing resources
• to favor data exchange and valorization
• to inform on data and information management
• Ca-SIF, a stimulus for forest ecosystem
  monitoring and research?
• need for animation to gather the forest
  information community (what will be the attitude
  of the information providers?)
• towards an information system on forest?
  accessibility, valorization, collaboration

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• Webography
• www.gip-ecofor.org
• www.enfors.org
• www.gip-ecofor.org/f-ore-t
• www.sinpa.ifn.fr
• Financial support
• ECOFOR
• Ministry of agriculture and fisheries

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Thank you for your attention