Planning is an active process requiring careful thought about what could or should happen in the future and involves the coordination of all relevant activities for the purpose of achieving specified goals and objectives. Planning is an integral component of forest management; is about determining and expressing the goals and objectives which government, rural communities or companies have, and for deciding the targets and steps that should be taken in order to achieve those objectives.

A range of information is used in planning to evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of alternative courses of action, which enables preferred options to be determined, coordinated with other activities, and expressed in writing. Information should be of good quality. Information of questionable quality should either be discarded or, if used, it should be noted that it is of poor quality and one of the activities of the plan should be acquiring better quality information.

The cost and estimates will be area specific.