Publication

This paper describes the activities and visions of IUFRO's GFIS Task Force for establishing an Internet-based metadata service.

After meetings in Portland, USA 1996, Antalaya, Turkey 1997, and Rovaniemi, Finland 1998, it was concluded that an Internet-based approach to improve the accessibility to and the quality of forest-related information would be financially and technically feasible (Päivinen et.al., 1998). As a result of these meetings IUFRO established the Global Forest Information Service (GFIS) Task Force in the Fall of 1998. The mission of the Task Force is to idevelop a strategy for, and implement, an Internet-based metadata service that will provide co-ordinated world-wide access to forest information. The resulting service will provide multiple benefits to information users and providers including, facilitating user-friendly access to a greater amount of information, and improving the dissemination and quality of forest-related data and information.