Cette loi porte régime de base en matière d'environnement. Elle vise, notamment, à: préserver la diversité et l'intégrité de l'environnement; créer les conditions d'une utilisation quantitativement et qualitativement durable des ressources naturelles; garantir à tous les citoyens un cadre de vie écologiquement sain et équilibré. Les citoyens sont tenus à participer collectivement pour la sauvegarde de l'environnement.

In 1986, ILCA carried out informal surveys at Dogollo and Inewari in order to understand the farming systems. Such surveys were also conducted by the Institute of Agricultural Research (IAR) at Ginchi in 1986 and by the Alemaya University of Agriculture at Ada/Debre Zeit in 1988/89. This was followed by one-time detailed formal farm surveys at Dogollo, Inewari and Ginchi in 1988/89. This chapter mostly presents the results of these formal surveys.

The main objectives of the present assessment were: (i) to provide reliable and globally consistent information on the state of the tropical forests by 1990 and the rates of change during 1981 to 1990 and (ii) to undertake studies on the process of deforestation and forest degradation and their environmental implications.

This issue of Unasylva focuses on the recently completed FAO assessment of forest resources at a global level, with 1990 taken as the reference year (a similar assessment was undertaken a decade ago). The articles presented in this issue consider the data generated in the assessment as well as some of the difficult underlying questions inherent in forest resource assessment.

In the context of developing a practicable and cost effective method for obtaining a country’s forest area by remote sensing, the computer processing of NOAA AVHRR HRPT data covering Liberia was investigated. The only cloud-free scene then recorded turned out to be severely and unevenly affected by atmospheric haze. To mitigate the effects of this, the country was divided into six areas (strata) of more uniform haze conditions.