Assessments of forest biodiversity - the diversity within forest species, between species and of forest ecosystems - are essential if forest resources are to be effectively conserved and sustainably managed (Hunter, 1999). Assessments are needed to provide information necessary to support biodiversity-related decision-making in forest policy and management. However, assessment of forest biodiversity presents a number of challenges. First, because of the complexity of biodiversity, information about it needs to be assembled and expressed based on simplified variables, typically in the form of indicators (Noss, 1990, 1999). Second, since decisions relating to forests are made at a variety of scales, biodiversity data and indicators need to be aggregated across different scales for monitoring and reporting purposes (Noss, 1990; Turner, 1995).

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