scholarly journals Would harmonizing public land forest policies, Criteria and Indicators, and certification improve progress towards Sustainable Forest Management?: A case study in Alberta, Canada

2008 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 410-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
P J Golec ◽  
M K Luckert

As the concept of Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) has evolved, governments and other stakeholders have pursued three important frameworks for defining and pursuing SFM: public land forest policies, Criteria and Indicators and certification. In Canada, these three approaches frequently operate simultaneously as policy frameworks for private firms managing forests on public lands. Harmonization of these three frameworks could create potential benefits by simplifying a complicated array of sometimes conflicting forest management standards. But there are also potential costs of harmonization that could arise out of the diverse conditions that embody SFM. The diversity of social values and ecological conditions associated with forests creates difficulties in designing processes that are representative of stakeholders' interests. Moreover, this variety poses challenges to designing standards that are sufficiently flexible to address local conditions, yet useful in contributing to SFM planning and reporting at regional, provincial and national scales. Within this context, we suggest that the diversity inherent in SFM will continue to be accommodated by multiple management frameworks, unless a single framework arises that shows itself capable of being trusted by stakeholders and of being sufficiently flexible to accommodate various definitions of Sustainable Forest Management. Key words: Sustainable Forest Management, forest certification, Criteria and Indicators, public forest policy, harmonization of Sustainable Forest Management frameworks, case study, Canada, Alberta

2011 ◽  
Vol 87 (04) ◽  
pp. 488-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Duinker

The aim of the paper is to take stock, based on my personal scholarly and practical experiences, of the progress made in Canada with criteria and indicators of sustainable forest management (C&I-SFM). Some developmental history is reviewed, and applications at national and local levels are summarized. In my opinion, Canada's work in developing and applying C&I-SFM has been beneficial, particularly in focussing forest-sector dialogues, in sensitizing people to the wide range of forest values, and in retrospective determinations of progress in SFM. Improvements over the next decade are needed in several areas: (a) improving data-collection programs; (b) linking C&I-SFM more directly into forest policy development; (c) shifting from retrospective to prospective sustainability analysis; and (d) applying C&I-SFM to non-industrial forests such as protected areas and urban forests. The C&I-SFM concept is sound. We have yet to tap its full potential in the pursuit of forest and forest-sector sustainability.


2002 ◽  
Vol 153 (11) ◽  
pp. 419-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurt Bisang ◽  
Willi Zimmermann

Since UNCED 1992, national forest programmes(NFP) have served as a strategy to formulate and implement forest policies aiming at sustainable forest management. At the international policy level, the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests and the United Nations Forum on Forests have issued a set of proposals for action. A number of countries have started to plan and implement national forest programmes. However, precisely what NFPs are, and what their impact might be, is not entirely clear. This article gives an overview of the international forest policy debate and discusses first experiences made with NFPs in European countries. Against this background the article reflects on the lessons learnt and discusses the prospects for an NFP in Switzerland.


2009 ◽  
Vol 85 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-284
Author(s):  
M.K. (Marty) Luckert ◽  
Peter C Boxall

This paper discusses the potential of certification and criteria and indicators (C&I) of sustainable forest management (SFM) for filling voids in forest policy in Canada. These processes have promised advances towards SFM that the current property rights conveyed on the forest industry, through existing systems of tenures, may simply not allow. In general, the broad social welfare approach that current thinking in sustainable development supports, and that certification and criteria and indicators appear to employ, is not consistent with the incentives, rights, and responsibilities that private forestry firms currently hold. There is a fundamental mismatch between the property rights that have been conveyed to private firms operating on public forest lands and what the policy frameworks of certification and C&I are expected to deliver. The conclusion is that if the voids in forest policy are to be successfully filled by certification and C&I, the underlying property rights currently held by firms will need revision. Key words: sustainable forest management, criteria and indicators, certification, Canadian forest policy, forest tenures


2002 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 505-510 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sen Wang

The world's forests have all the characteristics of "wicked problems" that are complex, tricky and thorny. Decades of sweeping changes that have taken place worldwide at various levels have resulted in the emergence of "metaforestry" which transcends the field of conventional forestry in response to the need to deal with ulterior and more fundamental problems concerning the forest. Being an overarching objective of metaforestry, sustainable forest management calls for a new line of thinking to promote collaboration in international forums concerning global forest policy. Key words: adaptive management, criteria and indicators, ecosystem, global forest policy, sustainable forest management


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. LACLAU ◽  
A. MEZA ◽  
J. GARRIDO SOARES DE LIMA ◽  
S. LINSER

The Southern Cone countries of Chile, Argentina and Uruguay have a common background regarding land use and land cover with a total of 46 million ha of forests whose benefits are prospering for the regional framework of the Southern Cone. The three countries do not articulate or interchange on their forest policies beyond circumstantial agreements. In this regard, and as our first research focus, we examined experiences while participating in the international Montréal Process on Criteria and Indicators for the Conservation and Management of Temperate and Boreal Forests. Secondly, we focused on the progress these processes have afforded regarding respective national implementation of criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management (C&I for SFM) and uptake in forest policy. Thirdly, we examined also the obstacles experienced during participation and implementation. We based our findings on content analysis of key documents and author observations. Albeit the institutional and political frameworks between the countries differ, we found common constraints on budgeting, limited human resources and institutional capacity. Communication to society and policy makers' commitment are also important weaknesses. The engagement of the three countries in the Montréal Process and the application of related national sets of C&I for SFM have provided solutions to recent land use conflicts. This also strengthened the quality and effectiveness of recently approved laws and regimes for a sustainable forest management. In conclusion, the forest dialogues of these countries, within and between each other, were reinforced by participation in C&I for SFM processes, helping to bridge the gap between decision-makers, national forest agencies, academia and other forest-related stakeholders. Common indicators and related national reports facilitated the identification of affinities for regional integration on a common basis and helped to raise the level of national forest policies increasing its strength and commitment to global forest challenges. The lessons learned should be considered to reach progress towards sustainability.


2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (10) ◽  
pp. 2004-2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Maness ◽  
Ross Farrell

A multi-objective optimization model was created for medium-term forest development planning for an integrated forest products company located in the East Kootenay area of British Columbia, Canada. First, a set of sustainable forest management criteria and indicators were developed based on information that could be collected from regional geographic information sytem (GIS) databases and potential outputs from the model. Next, a new forest development planning unit was created (stewardship unit) in which adjacent forest polygons with similar indicator attributes were aggregated. The planning model was designed to determine appropriate harvest levels and management treatments on each stewardship unit to satisfy objectives determined in a participatory process. The mathematical model uses a fuzzy MAXMIN approach, where each indicator represents an objective in the model. Indicators are valued in the model using targets, thresholds, and triggers (called the 3-T approach). A case study is used to demonstrate the use of the model in a sustainable forest development planning context. The results of the case study show that the planning area is highly sensitive to visual quality, old-growth, and community watershed indicators. The paper concludes with a sensitivity analysis that determines the relative opportunity cost of various sustainable forest management indicators on company profits, employment, and tax revenues.


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