SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENT

(SFM)

Mohammad Khalid Hassan

 Introduction
 Forest benefits
 Global forest area 4 billion ha.
1. Decrease in forest area
2. 16 000 million ha/ year in 1990s
 Protected are comprise 13% of ward forest
 Area reserved for biological diversity 12%
 Area reserved for soil and water conservation 8%
 Planed forest comprise 7% of world forest
• The bad news is
Decrease in primary forests by 40 million
hectare in the last decade.
Increase in the planted forest area (comprise
7 % of world forest).
 Sustainable forest management (SFM)

• History

17th Century

18th Century

• Sustainable timber production

• Sustainable multiple use management

20th Century

• Sustainable ecosystem management

 Definition of SFM

the stewardship and use of forests and forest

lands in a way, and at a rate, that maintains
their biodiversity, productivity, regeneration
capacity, vitality and their potential to fulfill,
now and in the future, relevant ecological,
economic and social functions, at local,
national, and global levels, and that does not
cause damage to other ecosystems
 Means to Achieve SFM
 Criteria and indicators (C&I)
• Rio Declaration on Environment and
Development in 1992
• They are tools used to collect information
to evaluate and implement sustainable
forest management
 Forest certification
 Criteria and Indicators (C & I)
• They are tools which can be used to conceptualize,
evaluate, and implement sustainable forest
management
• C & I can be identified at various levels:
1. Global
2. Regional (ecoregional)
3. National. Subnational
4. Forest management unit level (FMU).
 Criteria and Indicator C & I
• Nationa-level C & I have been developed essentially as
reporting and monitoring instruments, not as standards
with which to assess sustainability
• Development of C&I at the FMU level has been largely for
the purpose of assessing sustainability and , to a lesser
degree, as tools to facilitate the implementation of better
management practices.
• It is unlikely that a single set of C&I will apply uniformly
across the globe.
• It is equally unlikely that a set of C&I developed at the
national level will be meaningful at the forest level
Summary of the C&I development process
for forest Unit
• Methods
 Initiatives for establishing C&I
1. African Timber Organization [ATO],
2. Dry Forest in Asia
3. Dry Zone Africa
4. International Tropical Timber Organization [ITTO]
5. Lepaterique of Central America
6. Montreal Process
7. Near East
8. the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forest
in Europe, MCPFE
9. Tarapoto of the Amazon Forest
 Uses C&I
1. Monitoring forest management
2. accrediting or certifying forest industries with
respect to how well they are managing their
forests
3. guide to forest managers to improve
management of their forests
4. aiding forest institutions in resources
allocation.
 Criteria of SFM
1. Extent of forest resources
2. Biological diversity
3. Forest health and vitality
4. Productive functions and forest resources
5. Protective functions of forest resources
6. Socio-economic functions
7. Legal, policy and institutional framework.
 Indicators of
Extent of forest resources
1- Area & percentage of forests & other wooded lands
including plantations, agroforestry, shelterbelts with
their change over time (deforestation, reforestation &
conversion).
2- Biomass/Standing volume, Growing stock, Carbon
stock.
3- Area & percentage of forests for which management
plans are made
4- Area & percentage of forests & other wooded lands
which have been demarcated.
Characteristics of good indicators
1. ease of measurement,
2. sensitivity to stresses on the system,
3. responsive to stress in a predictable manner,
4. anticipatory,
5. able to predict changes that can be averted by
management actions,
6. integrative,
7. known response to disturbances,
8. anthropogenic stresses and changes over time,
9. and low variability in response
 Sustainable forest management
• Limitations of criteria and indicators.
1. Highly idealistic that they are a pathological
corruption of the reductionist approach to
science.
2. The same indicator may lead to contradictory
conclusions according to the criterion and
the scale.
 Harmonization of C&I
 Harmonization should not be mistaken for
standardization
 Considerable efforts have been made
towards the search for a
harmonization/collaboration among C&I
processes through the Inter-Criteria and
Indicator Process.
 Advantages of Indicators
Advantages of harmonization.
1. Minimize costs (avoiding duplication and
preventing overlap),
2. Facilitate comparisons between countries
and
3. Improve the credibility of SFM.
 factors to be considered about the criteria
& indicators
• They should be operational
• They should have functionality, it means has low
cost for execution & do not have a lot of
administrative work.
• Transparency of the criteria & indicators which it
means be understandable for people
• Compatibility of the criteria & indicators it means
that selecting the criteria & indicators should be
based on the economic, ecological, social & cultural
conditions.
 Improving the Indicators
• The use of a suitable scale
• Establishment of a specific interpretation of
each indicator
 Levels of SFM
1. National level,
2. Sub-national and
3. Forest management unit (FMU) levels are
essential to assess SFM .
some indicators (biodiversity indicators), may
need subdivision such as
4. plot,
5. landscape
6. spatial levels
 Forest Certification
• It is a process that has been developed to
promote SFM.
• It is defined by a voluntary system conducted
by a qualified and independent third party
who verifies that forest management is based
on a predetermined standard and identifies
the products with a label.
 Objectives of Forest Certification
• Improve forest management (reaching SFM).
• Ensure market access for certified products.
 Entities that provide forest certification

1. Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

2. The Program for the Endorsement of Forest
Certification (PEFC), previously termed Pan
European Forest Certification.
3. The Canadian Standards Association (CSA).
4. The Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI).
5. The Chile Forest Certification Corporation
(CERTFOR).
6. The Malaysian Timber Certification Council, among
others.
 Entities that provide forest certification

 The area of certified forest reached 375

million hectares in 2011 (10% of the global
forest area).
 The FSC scheme was established in 1993
 It is the first program in terms of number
of certified countries (81 countries)
 It is the second system in terms of
certified area (140 million ha).
 Entities that provide forest certification

The PEFC scheme was established in 1999

 It endorses 30 national forest certification
systems
 It certifies more than 230 million hectares of
certified forests is currently the largest forest
certification system .
 Who Benefit from Forest Certification.

1. Forest owners should have an exclusive

market with premium prices.
2. The forest industry should improve its green
Corporate image, should not be held
responsible for deforestation.
3. Consumers should be able to use forest
products with a clear conscience.
4. Forests should be managed sustainably.
 Who Benefit from Forest Certification.
 The expected price increases have not
occurred
 Consumers use certified forest products
with a clear conscience
 Forest industry has ensured market access
without any great extra cost
 Who Benefit from Forest Certification.
 Almost all certified forests are located in
developed countries.
 Most of these forests are productive forests
such as
 Single-species
 Even-aged forests
 Plantations
 Only small changes must be made to achieve
forest certification
Who Benefit from Forest Certification.
 Primary forests have largely been ignored.
 The extra charge involved in certifying
products from primary forests hinders
certification which are actually the most
endangered forests.
 This may favor unsustainable management
 Illegal logging
 Conversion of forest land to agricultural
land
 Other initiatives
Other initiatives beyond of forest certification has
been implemented
1. Forest law enforcement, governance and
trade (FLEGT)
 Action plan of the European Union that
provides a number of measures to
 Exclude illegal timber from markets
 Increase the demand for wood coming
from responsibly managed forests
 Other initiatives
2. Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and
Forest Degradation (REDD)
 Initiative of the united nations
 Create a financial value for the carbon
stored in forests,
 Offering incentives for developing
 Critic to Forest Certification
 plantations should not be certified
 the replacement of primary forests with
plantations is a damaging process
 replacement of degraded areas such as
abandoned pasture or agricultural land
provides obvious advantages.
 Critic to Forest Certification
 FSC and PECF approve the certification of forest
plantations because they believe that the
promotion of wood products from plantations will
help to reduce the pressure on primary forests.
 FSC has added another principle in an attempt to
ensure SFM in plantations,
 PECF considers that its criteria and indicators are
sufficient to ensure the sustainability of planted
forests.
 Critic to Forest Certification
 Most environmentally concerned consumers will
demand wood from sustainably managed forests,
and will choose the least expensive product.
 Producers and industries will choose the bodies
that certify forests most readily and at the lowest
cost.
 This may lead to a situation where the certification
schemes would tend to compete with each other
and standards would be reduced to attract
producers
 Forest Governance

 Forest Tenure

 Governments failure to effectively manage

environmental resources
 Neo-liberal ideology

 Market forces destructive to environment

 Forest Governance
• Decentralization
• Many reasons advocate decentralization of forest.
1. Integrated rural development projects often
fail because they are top-down projects that
did not take local people's needs and desires
into account.
2. National government sometimes have legal
authority over vast forest areas that they
cannot control
 Forest Governance
• Decentralization
Apprehension about local governments
1. Short of resources.
2. May be staffed by people with low education.
3. Sometimes captured by local elites who
promote clientlist relation rather than
democratic participation.
result of community-based projects have also been
discouraging.
 Forest Governance
• Decentralization
Better forest governance should be sought that
emphasizing the
1. Importance of forest in meeting basic human
needs in the future
2. Maintaining ecosystem and biodiversity
3. Addressing climate change mitigation and
adaptation goal.
 Forest Governance
• Decentralization
Such advocacy must be coupled with
1. financial incentives for government of
developing countries.
2. Greater governance role for local
government, civil society, private sector and
NGOs on behalf of the “communities”.
 Conclusion
 Sustainable forest management is evolving with public
awareness and scientific knowledge,
 The sustainability concept must be revised to reflect the
new reality generated by climate change
 C&I should be updated continuously to be able to cope
with the climate change challenge and assess sustainability
of changing ecosystems.
 Harmonization of c&i processes would be the most
desirable outcome, since this would improve the credibility
of the schemes.
 Forest certification has failed to avoid deforestation
 Conclusion
forest certification has got two main challenges;
(1) to certify the forests that are most important in ecological
terms and that are most susceptible to poor forest
management, such as tropical forests and, to a lesser extent,
non productive forest in boreal and temperate regions.
(2) to achieve a market with premium prices, in which the win-win
concept will prevail. This will require educational campaigns
and a higher level of credibility for labels. Moreover, parallel
initiatives, such as FLEG and REDD, considering outside forest
sector drivers leading to deforestation should be taking into
account to limit this process.