The FMT is a tool for forestry analysts to assist in calculating and verifying areas harvested, protection of conservation areas and buffer zones, validating maps of infrastructure, checking regeneration areas, forest types, forest inventory, estimating volumes, allowable cuts and rotations based on data from earth observation (EO), or satellite remote sensing.
It is designed for use by professionals in forest management, forest certification, conservation and monitoring. Its development has been sponsored by the Forest Stewardship Council and the European Space Agency
It functions as an add-in to the open-source QGIS Geographical Information System. QGIS is free software that provides extensive capabilities for digitizing and processing maps and satellite imagery. Full information and software downloads are available from the QGIS website www.qgis.org. QGIS has the facility for automatically installing third-party plugin software, and the FMT complies with this protocol. The Download and Installation pages on this site give more detail information, whilst the Users Guide gives examples of usage. The Download page also includes data sets for testing and experimentation.
The Links shown at the right are sources from which imagery or image processing services can be obtained, or portals to directory services relating to this or GIS software or data. We welcome suggestions for additional links to include on the list.
There is also a Forum for the FMT, especially relative to issues or bugs noted in its use, suggestions for improvement, and how-to discussions. You must Login to use the forum. To register as a user, go to the Login menu and follow the indicated steps.
Webmaster: Denis Alder (post@denisalder.com). Last update March 2011.