National Forest Inventory Steering Committee

​​​Australia’s National Forest Inventory (NFI) is guided by a National Forest Inventory Steering Committee (NFISC), which is composed of members representing state, territory and Australian government agencies involved in forest information management. The NFISC provides for expert representation from each state and territory government as well as from the Australian Government Department of Agriculture and Water Resources​​ and the Australian Government Department of the Environment. The Queensland Government and the Australian Government Department of the Environment are currently unrepresented. 

Australia’s National Forest Policy Statement states that the NFI: 

...will be directed by a steering committee representing the Governments. This committee will jointly define information requirements and develop data exchange principles between the Governments and with other databases.​ Such principles will cover, among other things, custodianship, maintenance and cost recovery. ​​

The NFISC is a subsidiary body under the Forestry and Forests Products Committee (FFPC), which consists of government officials from Australian, state, territory and New Zealand agencies responsible for forestry and/or forest products. The FFPC reports to the Agriculture Senior Officials Committee which is an advisory committee under the Agricultural Ministers Forum.

The NFISC is a co-author of Australia’s State of the Forests Report 2013 with the Montréal Process Implementation Group for Australia (MIG; also a subsidiary body of the FFPC). The MIG focuses on policy issues relevant to Australia’s forests, and led the development of Australia’s Sustainable Forest Management Framework of Criteria and Indicators.

A small NFI management team within the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences​ provides secretariat support to the NFISC, in addition to carrying out core NFI activities, including the collection, compilation, analysis and management of forest data, and the public communication of forest information.