Status of forest resources of Montenegro

The data on the state of the forest resources of Montenegro at the national level in the previous period were obtained by different methodologies (including sublimation of information contained in general and special Forest Management Plans, Forest Management Programmes, Operational Plans, etc.) and thus a lack of harmonization between them and their relative unrealiability in terms of macro-economic planning is understandable for the time being. One of the reasons behind this issue was the absence of National Forest Inventory as the necessary tool that provides a reliable and comprehensive information on the status of forest at national level. The first National Forest Inventory of the forests of Montenegro was undertaken in order to create realistic grounds for quality strategic planning in forestry. In methodological terms, this Inventory is compliant with the standards used by countries with long forestry tradition, and it involved the application of a systematic sampling in the form of clusters, distributed in the network of 2×2 km throughout the territory of Montenegro, where qualitative and quantitative data (site description, description of stands, and survey of trees) were collected and subsequently processed and analyzed. This paper presents and analyzes the state of forest resources of Montenegro by various characteristics and on the basis of data resulting from the National Forest Inventory such as: areas under forests, ownership, the representation of certain tree species, total standing volume, volume increment, etc. The results of the first National Forest Inventory show substantial differences with these elements compared to previous (available) figures on forests resources of Montenegro. Forests cover 59.9% and forest land covers 9.8% (69.7% altogether) of the territory of Montenegro. Standing volume amounts to around 118 mil m³ with current volume increment of 2.8 million m³. The reliability and comprehensiveness of these and other results of the National Forest Inventory create realistic grounds for macro-economic planning, provide for correspondence with associations performing monitoring of forest ecosystems at regional and global levels, and place Montenegro amongst countries that have established their Forest Policy on reliable and methodologically appropriate grounds.