Abstract
At the international policy level, there is a clear link between access to information about forests and the work towards sustainable land use. However, involving forests in planning for sustainable development (SuD) at the Swedish local level, by means of municipal comprehensive planning (MCP), is complicated by sector structure and legislation. Currently, there is a gap or hole in the MCP process when it comes to use and access to knowledge about forest conditions and forest land use. This hole limits the possibilities to formulate well-informed municipal visions and goals for sustainable forest land use as well as for overall SuD. Here we introduce an approach for compilation and presentation of geographic information to increase the preconditions for integrating forest information into Swedish MCP. We produce information about forest ownership patterns and forest conditions in terms of age and significant ecological and social values in forests for a case study municipality. We conclude that it is possible to effectively compile geographic and forest-related information to fill the hole in the municipal land use map. Through our approach, MCP could be strengthened as a tool for overall land use planning and hence as a base in SuD planning.
Highlights
The concept and meaning of local ecological, economic, and social sustainable development originates in the general global definition in Our Common Future, which states that sustainable development (SuD) is an activity that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” [1] (p. 8)
Conditions on dated final felling events detected from the forestchange changeanalysis analysis (FCA), we present a dataset describing forest all forest land independent of forest owner for ourwe focus studya area
Within the non-industrial private forest owners (NIPF) owner category, largely due to the out-migration of people from Vilhelmina from 1958 [55,56], it can be assumed that a substantial proportion of the forest land owned by resident owners in 1958 is owned by non-residents, while the forest land owned by resident owners in 1958 is still owned by resident owners
Summary
The concept and meaning of local ecological, economic, and social sustainable development originates in the general global definition in Our Common Future, which states that sustainable development (SuD) is an activity that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” [1] (p. 8). Agenda 21, the program of action from the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, recognizes the role of the local level for global SuD. Agenda 21 states that local authorities play a vital role in finding solutions for global sustainability-related problems because the problems commonly are rooted in local activities and human behaviors. In addition to the local SuD perspective, Agenda 21 identifies local-based spatial planning as important for SuD work [1,2]. The role of spatial planning has been questioned over the years cf [8,9], it is recognized as an important political tool for long-term sustainability [10,11]. To secure relevance in the planning, Forests 2017, 8, 189; doi:10.3390/f8060189 www.mdpi.com/journal/forests
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
