XML is a text based data format that allows to store a lot of informations in an easy way. the main interest of this standard defined by w3 consortium is that data are stored in a text file and also that it is very easy to check that a file producted by any software fit with a predifine organisation of the data thanks to «XML Scheme».

During the annual meeting of 2005, IEFC members considered usefull and interesting to define an XML scheme for basic information on forest for people wanting to store or exchange data. Indeed, more and more foresters are using softwares to store data from their stands, their works, and their budget but without any guaranty to be able to read again this data in 10 years for compatibility reasons.
So the idea is to provide to the forest community this standards, software and time independant. As first draf is already online, and anyone (forester, software maker, software user, …) can join the group or send comments to iefc to improve this first draft and send any suggestion. We thank you in advance for your collaboration, and plan to open a forum to collect comments in a while.
Check forestXML Scheme version 0,3 (first public release)
Example of XML file