During the first year of the research, the effort has been to design and test a computer system which can carry out all these functions, and yet which can be used by villagers with 4 to 7 years of primary education only, who have never seen a computer before, after brief training. Clusters of villages have been involved in Tanzania, Uganda, Senegal, Mali, Nepal and Uttranchal (India), each cluster being given technical support by a local NGO. It has been found that villagers have little difficulty in taking tree measurements, mapping using the hand-held computer, locating sample plots, and entering the relevant tree data.