Introduction

Whether this is the last Commonwealth Forestry Handbook in book form or not, it is undeniably the first of the new century and it comes at a critical stage in the handling of data and information for forestry in the world.  In developed countries, access to the world wide web (www) is now taken for granted and in many developing countries access is widely available to the more senior people in both government and non- government organisations concerned with forests.  Nevertheless, many people still prefer to possess "hard" (paper) copies of much of their most-referred-to information sources. For this reason and because updating will be easier we are issuing this edition in an A5 ring binder format

The handbook has always been a prime source of information and this was particularly the case before the establishment of international organisations the mandate of which is to provide internationally-accessible information bases. The main international source of forest information today is FAO, Rome and its offices throughout the world and the Association is extremely grateful for the generous way in which they have made their data available to us in support of this edition of the handbook

In the 1996 handbook we included some details of the areas of specialisation of some of our members. This has been dropped from this edition for two reasons the first of which was a lack of enthusiasm in questionnaires returned to us.  More important, however, is the increasing data protection legislation that requires publishers, in some countries at least, to obtain the explicit permission of the people concerned for their details to be published. As far as we can be sure all members living the UK and subject to British legislation have agreed to having their details published in the Handbook.

The remainder of the contents are, we hope, clearly set out and accessible. We are particularly grateful to CAB International for their generosity in making their databases of journals available. Both they and FAO have their own websites which are mines of information.  CABI is on www.cabi.org and FAO on (www.fao.org).  Readers will notice that we do not give full world coverage in the address list of all countries, selecting those that are of most relevance to Commonwealth countries.  The full databases of FAO, CABI and most other international institutions can be accessed direct.

The inclusion of conversion tables in this edition is controversial - a fifty percent approval in returned questionnaires. However, in a loose-leaf edition it is easy to remove unwanted pages.

It remains for the senior editor to thank most sincerely all those who helped him in this endeavour and, at the same time, to accept responsibility for the shortcomings that seem to be inevitable in any handbook of this nature

The editors