Data Sharing in the Perspective of Forestry

In a developing world, data sharing place an important role. In the field of forestry where outcomes are long term, it becomes more important. Government / public sector organizations where lots of tax payers money is used for generating of data should be more sensitive to the data sharing for scientific research with individuals or other organizations. It is necessary that such data is shared with individual organization who intend to use it for scientific purpose. The present paper describes the various steps including legal acts taken by the Government of India to facilitate data sharing. While in the forestry sector sate forest departments, Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education and Forest Survey of India are having large repositories of forestry data and they should be ready to share it for scientific purpose with others. While sharing data it would be very important to comply intellectual property rights. It will promote transparency, harmonious relations among researchers / organizations and will avoid duplication of efforts.