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The NFIS Vision

In August 2000 the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers (CCFM) agreed on the need to establish an information infrastructure, called Canada’s National Forest Information System (NFIS Canada), to answer questions on matters relating to sustainable forest management in Canada.

Canada’s National Forest Information System vision is to implement the necessary information technology framework to demonstrate sustainable forest management practices in Canada. The framework is designed to:

  • provide an ability to access the most current, consistent, and reliable forest resources information;
  • integrate information across jurisdictional boundaries;
  • provide consistency in reporting thereby avoiding different answers being given to the same question;
  • reduce costs through the sharing of information technology; and
  • provide greater efficiencies through the elimination of duplication in reporting.

The NFIS also significantly enhances the capability of participating parties to:

  • present an accurate picture of Canadian forest practices;
  • make national and international statements on sustainable forest management practices;
  • provide the strategic context for provincial, territorial, and federal agencies to easily and reliably address regional, national, and international challenges to Canadian forest practices;
  • support provincial, territorial, and federal commitments to open participation in forest policy to citizens by making available the necessary information for informed debate; and
  • enable agencies to better deal with cross-provincial, cross-territorial, and other jurisdictional issues.

Achieving the NFIS vision requires the development and implementation of both a governance model and technical infrastructure.

The technical infrastructure is made up of the following four distinct components:

  • distributed infrastructure (software and hardware);
  • custodial data sets (the data and information held by the partners) to be made securely available for access;
  • Web-based data and information publication tools; and
  • Web-based applications (e.g. report generation tables and graphs, data entry).

Other Resources on NFIS