Epiphytic lichen diversity and sustainable forest management criteria and indicators: A multivariate and modelling approach in coppice forests of Italy

Prescriptions of the Forest Management Planning Manual (FMPM) for Ontario's Crown forests are examined for conformance with the elements of the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers (CCFM) Criteria and Indicators (C&I) of sustainable forest management (SFM). The examination identifies gaps and highlights forest management planning aspects that require gap–bridging interventions at the forest management unit (FMU) level. The three levels (parts) of the FMPM—Management Planning, Annual Operations, and Reporting & Monitoring—are examined. Gaps are categorized in three groups—major, intermediate, and minor gaps. Major gaps are recorded for five out of 22 elements of the CCFM C&I framework, and these gaps indicate inadequate prescriptions for the corresponding elements at all the three levels. Minor gaps are also recorded for five elements, and these gaps indicate inadequate prescriptions at the monitoring level. Intermediate gaps are recorded for 11 elements, and depending on the specific element and indicator, inadequacy of prescriptions may only be for operations, reporting and monitoring, or may also include the planning level. The main findings of the gap analysis are that none of the six criteria of SFM has been fully incorporated in the FMPM; Part C (Reporting and Monitoring) has the highest degree and Part A (Plan Contents) has the lowest degree of non–conformity with respect to CCFM C&I framework; at the criterion–level the Global Ecological Cycles has major gaps while three criteria—Soil and Water Conservation, Multiple Benefits, and Society' Responsibility—have intermediate gaps; and the changes in the FMPM have been incremental while the shift in the concept of forest management from Sustained Yield Timber Management to SFM was a drastic change. Key words: biological diversity, Canadian Council of Forest Ministers, criteria and indicators, ecological cycles, forest management, multiple benefits, society's responsibility

Testing an expanded set of sustainable forest management indicators in Mediterranean coppice area

Policy makers, scientists and civil society are involved in the development of criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management (SFM), reflecting the growing worldwide demand for addressing sustainable development and environmental governance management goals. Such frameworks have been largely derived from expert-led or community-based approaches. This article details the identification process of criteria and indicators (C & I) based on the international principles of SFM through the analysis of a hybrid approach that uses both a top-down (TD) and a bottom-up (BU) approach. The aim of this article is to discuss how the two approaches have worked to incorporate the different views, opinions and experiences of experts and stakeholders. National-level C & I are then compared with those at the local level, making specific reference to sustainable community forest (CF) management. For the TD approach, a Delphi survey was conducted where 121 experts shared their knowledge, experience and judgements in assessing a set of 72 indicators with regard to the applicability, practicality and importance of national, regional and CF management in Nepal. For the BU approach, C & I for CF management were developed with the direct involvement of various stakeholders. It was shown that such a hybrid approach is feasible from a methodological point of view, but a framework is needed by the government to more fully utilize the opportunities of the C & I development process in the SFM context. The results of this study also help to bridge the gap between the ad hoc planning of decision makers and the requirement for a holistic management system, which includes participatory processes. Based on the conclusions of this study, general recommendations for the methodological design of C & I development in similar studies are given.

Growing concern about forest degradation and loss, combined with the political impetus supplied by the Earth Summit in 1992, led to the establishment of eleven intergovernmental, regional, and international forest-related processes focused on the use of criteria and indicators (C&I) for sustainable forest management (SFM). Up to 171 countries have participated in these processes to apply C&I frameworks as a tool for data collection, monitoring, assessment, and reporting on SFM and on achieving various forest-related UN Sustainable Development Goals. Based on an expert survey and literature analysis we identify six interlinked impact domains of C&I efforts: (1) enhanced discourse and understanding of SFM; (2) shaped and focused engagement of science in SFM; (3) improved monitoring and reporting on SFM to facilitate transparency and evidence-based decision-making; (4) strengthened forest management practices; (5) facilitated assessment of progress towards SFM goals; and (6) improved forest-related dialog and communication. We conclude that the 25-year history of C&I work in forestry has had significant positive impacts, though challenges do remain for the implementation of C&I and progress towards SFM. The work should be continued and carried over to other sectors to advance sustainability goals more broadly.

This chapter explores the different approaches to assess criteria and indicators (C&I) for sustainable forest management (SFM) as a result of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development 1992 and presents a case study of computing indicators at the local scale. It focuses on the international processes and provides an overview of national initiatives for the C&I and forest certification. The chapter focuses on the international processes and provides an overview of national initiatives for the C&I and forest certification. The 10 Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) principles and criteria form the basis for all FSC forest management standards and policies. The criteria at forest management unit level are likely to be identical or very similar to those defined at national level, although they are more flexible. The chapter presents a methodology and a case study for evaluating SFM indicators related with forest structure, timber yield, and biomass, assessed with information from light detection and ranging airborne system.

The Canadian Council of Forest Ministers' (CCFM) framework of Criteria and Indicators (C&I) for Sustainable Forest Management, published in 1995, provide a science-based framework to define and measure Canada's progress in the sustainable management of its forest. In 2001, the CCFM launched a review of its C&I to ensure the continued relevance of the indicators to Canadian values and to improve the ability to report on indicators. This paper describes the threestep review process, which engaged a broad array of representatives of various sectors of society. First, focus groups were used to identify public values, issues and concerns with respect to the sustainable use of Canada's forest. Second, technical experts from across the forest sector revised the indicators. Third, the revised C&I were validated with users of the framework. The revised framework, released in September 2003, consists of six criteria and 46 indicators. The number of indicators has been reduced, compared to the 1995 framework, by focusing on indicators that are most relevant to Canadians' values, are most often measurable with available data, and are understandable to policy makers, forest managers and an informed public. Links between criteria are better defined and, in some cases, indicators address multiple values under different criteria. A number of tools and techniques originally developed for use at the sub-national level were adapted for use at the national level in this review. Canada's experience with reviewing its indicators may serve as an example and model to other countries now considering reviewing their national C&I frameworks. Key words: Canada, Canadian Council of Forest Ministers, criteria and indicators, C&I, sustainable forest management, review

In this paper, sustainable forest management is discussed within the historical and theoretical framework of the sustainable development debate. The various criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management put forth by different, institutions are critically explored. Specific types of climate change mitigation policies/projects in the forest sector are identified and examined in the light of the general, criteria for sustainable forest management. Areas of compatibility and contradiction between the climate mitigation objectives and the minimum criteria for sustainable forest management are identified and discussed. Emphasis is put on the problems of monitoring and verifying carbon benefits associated with such projects given their impacts on pre-existing policy objectives on sustainable forest, management. The implications of such policy interactions on assignment of carbon credits from forest projects under Joint Implementation/Activities Implemented Jointly initiatives are discussed. The paper concludes that a comprehensive monitoring and verification regime must include an impact assessment on the criteria covered under other agreements such as the Biodiversity and/or Desertification Conventions. The actual carbon credit assigned to a specific project should at least take into account the negative impacts on the criteria for sustainable forest management. The value of the impacts and/or the procedure to evaluate them need to be established by interested parties such as the Councils of the respective Conventions.

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.

Climate change is recognized as a global threat that negatively impacts biodiversity and forest resources. The use of existing indicators for sustainable forest management (SFM) related to biodiversity and climate change, as well as the development of new indicators, will help assess how forest management practices impact biodiversity enhancement and climate change mitigation. A Pan-European set of criteria and indicators has been developed as a policy instrument for monitoring, evaluating, and reporting on the progress in implementing SFM. In Bosnia and Herzegovina and Western Balkans in general, the Pan-European set of criteria and indicators is an insufficiently researched topic and there is a lack of scientific research conducted regarding their development and implementation. Through the analysis of the current situation in forestry of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH), regarding the compliance and importance of the Pan-European criteria for SFM, this paper aims to explain how the international process of development and application of the Pan-European criteria for SFM can contribute to the improvement of the situation in forestry and the creation of a consistent forest policy in FBiH. The survey among forestry professionals (n=360), from the public forest administration and public forest companies in FBiH, included the sets of questions related to socio-demographic characteristics, assessment of compliance and importance of six criteria of SFM. Research results revealed that forestry professionals are mainly males, on average 41 years old, with 13 years of working experience. The majority of forestry professionals in FBiH are not familiar with Pan-European criteria for SFM, and have a low level of their understanding. On average, forestry professionals indicated that the Pan-European criteria for SFM were of high importance, while compliance with current forest management activities were rated lower on average. The large differences between responses regarding the average rating of compliance and importance of the Pan-European criteria for SFM indicate their low level of implementation in FBiH forest management activities. Accordingly, the results indicate that there is a need to organize educational lifelong learning programs in FBiH forestry sector, involving forestry professionals and other interested parties, to generate knowledge related to the Pan-European criteria for SFM and the concept of SFM in general.

Conservation planning using a species approach involves the prioritization and selection of conservation areas based on biological criteria. Therefore, there is a need to adopt appropriate criteria for forest conservation planning. We propose that forest conservation planning refers to globally accepted criteria and indicators (i.e. C&I) for sustainable forest management. Criteria related to 'biodiversity conservation' and 'soil and water conservation' are two functions adopted and applied to forest conservation planning using a geographic information system (GIS)-based multiple-criteria decision-making approach (MCDM). The biodiversity conservation criterion comprises indicators of ecosystem diversity and species diversity, whereas the soil and water conservation criterion consists of indicators related to landslide, flood and drought prevention functions. In addition, a criterion containing indicators for potential timber species distribution, proximity to settlements and roads is used as a measure of potential forest threats. The application of C&I to the GIS-based MCDM approach has enabled forest conservation priorities to be considered in terms of the important forest functions. It also integrated two decision-making processes (i.e. 'biodiversity conservation' and 'soil and water conservation') into a single process.

Criteria and indicators (C&I) for sustainable forest management are important tools to improve the quality of forest management. In most cases they have been developed by experts, but the participation of stakeholders is essential if the C&I are to be locally relevant and practicable. We asked four stakeholder groups to apply a set of C&I to a forest management unit in the eastern Amazon basin. The study confirmed the importance of involving stakeholders and demonstrated that effective efforts begin with well-defined and clearly understandable C&I. Stakeholders were better able to apply and adapt measurable verifiers than the more abstract indicators and criteria. Intensive communication about personal experiences and subjective interpretations is necessary to prevent misunderstandings and misinterpretations. Our study also confirmed the general practical applicability of C&I and revealed their potential as instruments of communication and learning.

This paper discusses the potential of birds as indicators of sustainable forest management. Several reviews have been critical of birds as indicators of environmental change, and we discuss the major criticisms in the context of forest management. We address these criticisms by suggesting alternative approaches for an indicator research program including the use of focussed studies to identify cause-and-effect relationships, habitat modelling to act as a surrogate to extensive monitoring of populations, and spatially-explicit population modelling (1) to conduct exploratory sensitivity analysis to identify the most important parameters; (2) to incorporate the spatial configuration of habitat into consideration of the impacts of management; (3) to anticipate future impacts as an alternative to measuring past impacts; (4) and, as a means of evaluating alternative management scenarios including natural disturbance regimes. Birds are unlikely to be able to act as a precise tool for the measurement of some forest condition, but they could be useful indicators of sustainable forest management as part of an iterative research program. Key words: sustainable forest management, biological indicators, forest birds, habitat modelling, population modelling, natural disturbance regimes

The study explored the sub-national implementation of the Pan-European Criteria and Indicators (C&I) for Sustainable Forest Management in Italy, based on the statistical analysis of answers to a questionnaire provided by representatives of the Italian sub-national forest administrations. The questionnaire explored the implementation of C&I in five applications and through the analytical lenses of ‘suitability of C&I to sub-national contexts’ and ‘adaptability of administrations to C&I’. The analysis of suitability and adaptability made it possible to identify and compare challenges in, and successful experiences with, the implementation of C&I, which were then used to formulate recommendations aimed at encouraging implementation and promoting academic and policy debate. The study reveals that C&I were implemented to a moderate extent. This level of implementation was determined most of all by the suitability of C&I to the Italian sub-national contexts, and less by the adaptability of administrations. Recommendations to foster implementation of and dialogue on C&I include the need for Italian sub-national administrations to transpose the Pan-European C&I into sub-national sets tailored to local circumstances by, for example, modifying existing C&I or integrating these into new customized indicator sets.

The situation of society and of forests has considerably changed within recent decades and these changes have some major implications for information requirements. The concept of sustainable forest management (SFM) has gained global political attention as the key to balance preservation and utilization of forests - and its content has been considerably extended to better cover ecological and social aspects. Indicators for a more detailed measurement of and reporting on progress towards SFM have taken a prominent role both in forest policy and in SFM certification in the 1990s. The elaboration of indicators as a tool in forest policy and in business contexts faces many similar challenges, such as the need to specify in concrete terms what is meant by the abstract concept SFM. In both areas, people are confronted with methodological weaknesses and a lack of practically useful data in key areas. A comparison of potential application and actual uses of indicators today also reveals that SFM indicators could and possibly will be used in many more areas. Today, SFM indicators are still in rather early stages of development. To become a truly useful tool in practice, considerably more work is needed to overcome existing shortcomings and to make indicator sets useful in a broader range of applications.

Airborne laser scanning (ALS) has emerged as a technology capable of generating descriptors of vegetation structure and best available terrain information. Research and operational implementations of ALS data have highlighted their value for characterizing forest structure and generating spatially explicit and objective spatial coverages and mapping products for forest management. Continued emphasis to enhance forest stewardship is promoting novel methods to integrate ALS to detail non-timber ecosystem values like habitat, soil, and water. Standardized criteria and indicator frameworks such as the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers provide a reliable starting point for where ALS has opportunities to characterize ecosystems objectively regardless of location. In this review of primarily Canadian work, we highlight how ALS is becoming an increasingly viable technology for deriving meaningful indicators to meet sustainable forest management criteria. We review and highlight the value of ALS for quantifying indicators of biological diversity, ecosystem condition and productivity, soil and water, and the role of forests in global ecological cycles. We conclude by highlighting the need for increased education, tech transfer, flexible software, and reporting frameworks alongside five key considerations for using ALS to derive meaningful indicators of sustainable forest management.