The International Forestry Resource and Institutions (IFRI) research program is a long-term, interdisciplinary, international research network that is compiling a growing international database of cross-national, time-series data on forests, the people using forest resources, and institutions for managing resources. In this presentation, Tedd Webb from the National University of Singapore gives a brief overview of IFRI and of lessons learned from their experiences in data collection and governance in forest resource management research. This presentation formed part of the CRP6 Sentinel Landscape planning workshop held on 30 September – 1 October 2011 at CIFOR’s headquarters in Bogor, Indonesia. Further information on CRP6 and Sentinel Landscapes can be accessed from http://www.cifor.org/crp6/ and http://www.cifor.org/fileadmin/subsites/crp/CRP6-Sentinel-Landscape-workplan_2011-2014.pdf respectively.

1. The International Forestry
Resource and Institutions
research program (IFRI)
Ted Webb, National University of Singapore

2. What is IFRI?
A long-term, interdisciplinary, international research network
Established in 1992; now coordinated by Arun Agrawal at University of Michigan

3. What is IFRI?
A growing international database of cross-national,
time-series data on forests, the people using forest
resources, and institutions for managing resources

4. IFRI’s Central Questions
• How do alternative systems of
governance and tenure affect social and
ecological conditions?
• What conditions favor collective action
for the provision of resource
management?
• How do people respond to changing
ecological and social conditions?
• How do diverse actors – user groups,
local associations, governments, interact
& jointly affect forest conditions?

5. Data required across space and
time
Sites (Users – Forests)
A A
SPAC E
B B
C C
D D
TIME

6. Data collected at each site
Ca. 2000 data points on:
• FOREST CONDITION
– Trees and shrubs
– Forest extent and change over
time
– Signs of illegal activities
• USERS AND GOVERNANCE
– Formal governance
arrangement
– Organization of forest users
– Activities of forest users COMMUNITY-LEVEL DATA
(not household)

7. IFRI Conceptual Model and relational
database
ENTITY
ASSOCIATION

8. Data comparability is paramount
• Common data
collection methods /
forms
• Extensive joint training
• Multi-country teams
whenever possible
• Repeat studies
• Extensive reporting to
communities and
relevant officials

9. Collaborating Research Centers

10. IFRI Master Database – Jan ’11
Visits per Total Sites
Site
1 161
2 54
3 23
4 2
Total Sites 346
**Planned interval between site revisits: 5 years**

11. Number of Site Visits by Country

12. Examples of what IFRI does best
• Examine forest governance evolution and
change
• 1:1 User group : forest analysis, comparable
over multiple sites and times
• Evaluate broad parameters of “forest
condition”, “sustainability” and “outcomes”

13. What IFRI does not do
• Biodiversity monitoring aside from basic
richness
• Single-species assessments
• Ecological research
• Economic valuation
• Landscape-level analysis

14. IFRI Forests: area
distribution
60
Number of Forests
50
40
160 30
20
140
10
Number of Forests
120 0
100
Forest Area (ha)
80
60
40
20
0
Forest Area (ha)

15. Most sites have ≤ 30 forest plots (expensive)
Tree plots = 10m radius
Sapling plots = 3 m radius
30 tree plots = 0.94 ha
30 sapling plots = 848 m2

16. IFRI in the context of Sentinel Landscapes
• The outputs of a sentinel landscape can include:
– descriptions of a state or process;
– basic data collection (for surveillance);
– understanding of a phenomenon, including causality; and
– experimentation, especially to provide recommendations, suggest
interventions and assess their efficiency (e.g., adaptive management).
• Researchers at sentinel landscapes can:
– provide information or data to stakeholders for its further use;
– analyze the information recorded;
– use the results of the observation and/or analysis for dissemination or
for further intervention; and
– assist decision making by providing indicators and predictive modeling
tools.

17. Lessons from IFRI
• Go slow: Years of up-front efforts are necessary.
• Governance
– Network leadership and collaborator commitment
– Streamlined, decentralized structure
– Local engagement and feedback necessary for long-term
collaboration
– Start small and grow within means around a core method
• Data
– Comparability
– Balance needed between breadth and depth of data
collected. Most frequent collaborator comment about IFRI:
“Too much data collected. But can you add…..?”
• Research has been question-driven
– Locally relevant and globally informative / comparable