Forests have multiple environmental and socio-economic functions that are vital at global, national and local levels. Accurate, reliable, up-to-date and easily accessible information on the state of forest resources is crucial to support policy making and planning in forestry sector. In Nepal, the last National Forest Inventory (NFI) was carried out in the nineties. According to that inventory, forest and shrub together were found to cover 39.6% of the country’s total land area. Till date, another NFI has not been carried out to update the forest resource database. Macro-level studies and visual observation have indicated that both forest coverage and condition in the hills have significantly improved due to intervention of community forestry. On the other hand, the valuable forest resources of the Terai belt of Nepal are getting degraded. The information based on the inventory of the nineties thus does not represent the present scenario. In this context, the Forest Resource Assessment in Nepal (FRANepal) Project has started from January 2010 to update forest resource database.
