1. Sustainable forest management
Criteria and indicators in the context of small scale community forest systems
Helena Pereira
CENTRO DE ESTUDOS FLORESTAIS

2. Forests are a key component of sustainable development
Sustainable forest management (SFM)
has become the pillar of forest policy at national, regional or global scale
but SFM is a complex issue and implementation requires improved knowledge within a multidisciplinary framework
Research
can contribute to a large extent in providing the rationale and the background for such an integrated management of forests
Scientific challenges
-functional understanding by generalisation and integration of approaches
multidisciplinary teams
multiscale approaches
SFM relies on
multifunctionality
dialogue
follow up

3. Shifting emphasis on the role and management of forests
Over past centuries, forests produced goods and management was about growth and yield.
Over the past decades, other forest functions became important and the sustainability concepts in forestry expanded from sustained yield towards management for sustainable multifunctional use.
sustained yield (wood) >>> sustainable natural resource management or ecosystem management
overexploitation, degeneration, disappearence of forest
importance of goods and services other then timber
awareness that forests play key-role at local, regional and global scale in regulating water, nutrient and carbon flows; forests affect atmospheric composition, water resources, biodiversity, global climate, gene flows, etc
Forest management deals with systems developing over large temporal and spatial scales

4. Milestones 1987 Bruntdland Commission
1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Sustainable development: progress that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Three dimensions in sustainable development
- ecological sustainability
- economic feasibility
- socio-political acceptability
The objective is to maximise these goals across the biological, economic and social systems.
Indicators are necessary to put into effect the concept of sustainability and to introduce it to policy making and monitoring processes
One approach is to develop pressure-state-response indicators and this is being applied to different sectors: agricultural, forest, industrial, energy

5. The Forest Principles set out in UNCED triggered international activities towards clarifying the term “sustainable forest management”, namely in terms of operational definition.
Operationalisation is still underway and the main outcomes are sets of criteria and indicators (C&I) to determine the general objectives or values that must be maintained in SFM as well as methods of implementing SFM.
The global focus of SFM is on the definition of C&I for the goals of SFM and what management processes are necessary
Criteria : categories of conditions or processes by which SFM may be assessed; clearly specified elements that define the scope and key outputs of SFM; they reflect a series of broadly held values related to the environmental, economic and social functions of the forets; they have a set of related indicators that are monitored periodically to assess change.
Indicator : a quantitative or qualitative measure of an aspect of the criterion to show current performance and trends in performance; they are chosen to provide measurable features of the criteria.

6. Criteria for sustainable forest management
Development of the first criteria and indicators for SFM began in the late 1980’ by ITTO (International Timber Trade Organization)
Three programmes have been developed through international cooperative processes to define sets of C&I for SFM
- Montreal Process criteria and indicators (MP C&I)
- European criteria and indicators (pan-European C&I)
- The ITTO Manual on criteria and indicators (ITTO C&I)
Montreal Process
7 Criteria
67 Indicators
Temperate and boreal forests
Pan European Process
(Helsinki Process)
6 Criteria
35 Indicators
European forests
ITTO Manual
7 Criteria
25 Indicators
Natural tropical forests

7. Criteria for sustainable forest management
Conservation of biological diversity
Maintenance of the productive capacity of forest ecosystems
Maintenance of forest ecosystem health
Conservation and maintenance of soil and water resources
Maintenance of forest contribution to global carbon cycles
Maintenance and enhancement of long-term multiple social and economic benefits
Legal, institutional and economic framework for forest management

8. Pan-European criteria
C.1. Maintenance and appropriate enhancement of forest resources and their contribution to global carbon cycles
C.2. Maintenance of forest ecosystem health and vitality
C.3. Maintenance and encouragement of productive functions of forests (wood and non-wood)
C.4. Maintenance, conservation and appropriate enhancement of biological diversity in forest ecosystems
C.5. Maintenance and appropriate enhancement of protective functions in forest management (notably soil and water)
C.6. Maintenance of other socio-economic functions and conditions

9. Pan-European criteria and indicators
C.1. Maintenance and appropriate enhancement of forest resources and their contribution to global carbon cycles
Forest area (ha)
Growing stock (m3)
Age structure or dbh distribution (dbh class/ha)
Carbon stock (tons CO2 equivalent/ha)

10. Pan-European criteria and indicators
C.2. Maintenance of forest ecosystem health and vitality
Deposition of air pollutants (N, S, base cations kg/ha)
Soil condition (pH, CEC cmol/kg, C/N ratio, organic C g/kg, base saturation %)
Defoliation (%)
Forest damage (biotic, abiotic, human induced damage, ha)

11. Pan-European criteria and indicators
C.3. Maintenance and encouragement of productive functions of forests (wood and non-wood)
Increment and fellings (m3)
Roundwood (m3/ha, currency/ha)
Non-wood goods (kg, currency/ha)
Services (currency/ha)
Forests under management plans (%)

12. Pan-European criteria and indicators
C.4. Maintenance, conservation and appropriate enhancement of biological diversity in forest ecosystems
Tree species composition (ha, by species)
Regeneration (ha, nat.reg., planting, seedling, coppice sprouting)
Naturalness (ha, undisturbed/semi-natural/plantations)
Introduced tree species (ha)
Deadwood (m3/ha)
Genetic resources (ha, in situ conserv./ex situ conser./seed production)
Landscape pattern (patch area classes)
Threatened forest species (number)
Protected forests (ha)

13. Pan-European criteria and indicators
C.5. Maintenance and appropriate enhancement of protective functions in forest management (notably soil and water)
Protective forests – soil, water and other ecosystem functions (ha)
Protective forests – infrastructure and managed natural resources (ha)

14. Pan-European criteria and indicators
C.6. Maintenance of other socio-economic functions and conditions
Forest holdings (number, ha)
Contribution to GDP (absolute figures, % of GDP)
Net revenue (national currency/ha)
Expenditures for services (currency)
Forest sector workforce (number of full time equivalents)
Occupational safety and health (number of accidents, loss of time/fatal)
Wood consumption (m3 EQ/head/yr)
Trade in wood (m3 EQ/yr)
Energy from wood resources (Energy terms/yr, % energy consumption)
Accessibility for recreation (ha)
Cultural and spiritual values (number of sites)

15. Implementing sustainable forest management is problematical and difficult
Balancing ecological and socio-economic benefits
SFM is a balance or trade off of ecological values against social and economic values
Social, economic and cultural benefits
Ecological values
Optimising socio-economic benefits within ecological constraints
Ecological
constraints
Economic activity operates within the ecological constrainsts of the forest ecosystem
Optimizing process
Social, economic, cultural

16. Sustainable forest management
Values: environmental, social, economic
Scale : regional, national, forest level, site level
Time : status and change
a The relative weighting given to the values and their quantification will vary
a Management goals for particular forests will vary
a Within forest variation of contribution to forest values
a Different levels of forest values for different forests
Acceptable balance for SFM <<>> mix and levels of values

17. Sustainable forest management
The C&I approach to SFM is internationally accepted at national level by the different stakeholders (i.e. research, policy makers, government bodies, economic partners) and work is actively underway towards system harmonisation, implementation, data gathering, monitoring and assessment procedures.
But very little was developed at the level of:
- Forest Management Unit
- Small scale community forest systems
and locally relevant criteria and applicable indicators will have to be designed (i.e. including autochthonous indicators).
Also indicators have not been designed for certification of SFM.
The C&I constitute a monitoring and measurement framework and do not have any accompanying standards. These will have to be the object of public forest policy and regulation.