Radar monitoring system for sustainable forest management in Indonesia

The year 2000 is considered as the final year for the obligation to reach sustainable forest management for timber production. To support management and to verify proper execution of guidelines and legislation, appropriate observation tools should be available. Current observation techniques suffer too much from severe cloud cover. The Indonesian Ministry of Forestry and the Tropenbos Foundation coordinate research into the utility of advanced radar techniques. In this paper some of the information needs and first research results are given.