Abstract
Management of natural forests in Costa Rica allows timber extraction in so far as it is guaranteed that the logging activities comply with diverse Sustainability Principles, Criteria and Indicators (PCIs). These are hierarchical and complex systems used, ex-ante in the formulation and approval of the Management Plan but have not been used for ex-post evaluation of managed forests. Development of sustainability evaluation systems that include few criteria is highly recommended. In that sense, the choice experiments contribute to simplification of the initial system of decision making, complementing a complex system of PCIs that permits detailed analysis of the management units. In this study, a choice experiment was included in a Delphi application and 5 key variables were identified to evaluate the sustainability of managed natural forests. These variables are, in order of importance—technical, legal and administrative conditions; external financing conditions; production performance; costs of preparing the Management Plan; and payment mechanisms for environmental services. The definition of these variables confirms not only that the technical, legal and administrative conditions are critical for sustainability but also that they could reflect the type of governance involved in sustainability forest management.
Highlights
International forest policy makers in most countries recognize the importance of sustainable forest management (SFM) [1], that is, a management system that pursues a balance between social and economic development and the ecological values associated to the forests, for present and future generations [2]
This critical point was highly recommended by the panel of experts and it resulted in the critical point that most contributed to the assessment of the sustainability of the management unit (MU)
Assessments can be performed to predict the complexity around sustainability, in this case, of MU under a SFM system
Summary
International forest policy makers in most countries recognize the importance of sustainable forest management (SFM) [1], that is, a management system that pursues a balance between social and economic development and the ecological values associated to the forests, for present and future generations [2]. The first version of the National Forest Development Plan (PNDF, for its acronym in Spanish), at the start of the millennium, indicated that Costa Rica had the potential to manage 160,000 ha of forests that were in the hands of private owners [15] This plan did not include any specific policy regarding promotion or attention of SFM, apart from what was established in the Forest Law. During the period 2001–2010, SFM in the whole country accounted for 3% of the harvested volume and in 2010, it achieved only 1.7% of the total harvest [16]. A manual of procedures is available to ensure the legal sustainability of FM, which defines the field of action of the State Forestry Administration [21] Under this system, complex technical and legal conditions are imposed in Costa Rica that discourage SFM development by forest owners [22].
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