ABSTRACT
Economic activities involving forestry entail the use of knowledge, skills, techniques, tools, equipment, and related inputs to transform raw materials into usable goods and services. Collectively, these inputs and their management constitute a technology. Technology plays a critical and often overlooked role in economic analyses of forestry activities. Technological innovation is an important segment of the technology development and adoption system. Dissemination of new technologies is an important step in the technology innovation system. Knowledge available for identifying and describing technological problems and for improving the development, dissemination, adoption, and utilization of new technology in forestry is far from adequate. Forestry research plays an important role in technological innovation. New or modified technologies that have been developed must be brought to the attention of intended users via a process of dissemination. Growing in importance is the need to understand technological innovation as a means of improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the forestry sector.
