SFM indicators as tools in political and economic contexts: actual and potential roles.

Abstract

AbstractThe 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.