Our Mission

The mission of the Branch of Forest Inventory and Planning is to provide specialized technical expertise in forest inventory and management by assisting American Indians and Alaska Natives with forest inventories, training and support, and services necessary to facilitate the accomplishment of all phases of forest resource inventory and management planning critical to successful management of trust forest resources.

Who We Serve

The Branch of Forest Inventory and Planning (FIP) works for the benefit of American Indians and Alaska Natives, supporting the inventory and planning of their trust forest resources.

Services We Provide

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About the Branch of Forest Inventory and Planning

Our highest priority is to serve and support the nation’s Tribes and their forestry field staff by providing technical expertise in forest inventory, data collection design and analysis, and the management planning process. In addition, FIP facilitates the processing of inventory data, the development of applications, the modeling and analysis of data, and the maintenance of automated systems for practical forest management.

FIP provides technical assistance to federally-recognized Tribes, including Alaska Natives, with services in forest inventory and management:

  • Pre-inventory planning, field inventory design & specifications, and sampling design.
  • Planning and coordination of Continuous Forest Inventory (CFI) installation or re-measurement.
  • Field inventory training for data collection methodologies and forest application usage.
  • Accurate and reliable forest inventory data processing for the development of the forest inventory analysis.
  • Analysis of CFI data to guide the calculation of Annual Allowable Cut, as reported within the tribal Forest Inventory Analysis reports required by the 25 CFR 163.
  • Development and maintenance of Stand Exams and other types of forest inventories.

FIP serves as the Division of Forestry’s national archive for reservation forest data and the national library of forest planning documents. FIP also manages the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Tribal employee enrollment in the National Advanced Silviculture Program (NASP).