2.5.2.4. Consistency with Internationally Recognized Criteria and Indicators
for Sustainable Forest Management and Sustainable Agriculture
2.5.2.4.1. Sustainable forest management
Since the UNCED, several intergovernmental efforts have been initiated to develop
criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management. These efforts include
the Helsinki Process (covering 39 European countries), the Montreal Process
(covering 12 non-European countries in the temperate and boreal zones), the
Tarapoto Process (covering the eight countries in the Amazonian Cooperation
Treaty), and the International Tropical Timber Organization (covering most forested
countries in the tropics). In addition, several efforts to establish criteria
and indicators at the national and subnational levels build on these international
approaches and adapt them to national and local forest conditions (WCFSD, 1999).
These and similar (e.g., FAO, 1995a) criteria and indicators are generally
moving beyond a narrowly defined focus on the productivity of timber and other
commercial forest products to incorporate ecological and social dimensions of
sustainability. For example, the broad forest values developed as criteria under
the Montreal Process for the conservation and sustainable management of boreal
and temperate forests follows:
- Conservation of biological diversity
- Maintenance of the productive capacity of forest ecosystems
- Maintenance of forest ecosystem health and vitality
- Conservation and maintenance of soil and water resources
- Maintenance of forest contribution to global carbon cycles
- Maintenance and enhancement of long-term multiple socioeconomic benefits
to meet societal needs
- Effective legal, institutional, and economic framework for forest conservation
and sustainable management.
The development of multiple national and international efforts to develop criteria
and indicators has led some observers, including the World Commission on Forests
and Sustainable Development (WCFSD), to propose that some elements of these
approaches can be usefully harmonized (WCFSD, 1999). The WCFSD further suggests
that these criteria and indicators should be based on a strategy for sustainable
forest management that reflects several broadly applicable objectives, including
the following:
- Indefinitely satisfying needs for timber, fiber, and non-timber forest products
- Ensuring conservation of soil and water
- Sustaining the resilience and renewal capacity of forests
- Supporting food security and livelihood needs of forest-dependent communities
- Conserving biological diversity
- Achieving the foregoing goals in a manner that is consistent with the incremental
productive capacity of forests and requirements for ecological security
- Realizing a more equitable sharing of benefits from uses to which forests
are put
- Increasing management, cultivation, harvesting, and utilization of minor
forest products as potential pillars of sustainable forestry to sustain livelihoods
from dwindling resources
- Securing tenural rights of forest-dependent populations as a means of promoting
conservation.
Parties seeking to implement sustainable forest management in the context of
LULUCF climate mitigation measures may be able to adapt the criteria and indicators
developed under one or more of these international processes. It is important
to recognize, however, that many of these general criteria address national-level
policy and sustainability and are not intended to directly assess sustainability
at the forest stand level. Indeed, some objectives will likely prove to be mutually
contradictory, particularly when they are applied in small ecological units.
For example, economically viable timber harvesting often may not be reconcilable
with the conservation of mature forest-dependent biological diversity in the
same forest tract (Section 2.5.1; Frumhoff, 1995; Bawa
and Seidler, 1998).
For site-specific projects, Parties might find the criteria and indicators
that the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) has developed for
the management of natural forests (CIFOR C&I Team, 1999; Prabhu et al.,
1999) particularly valuable. The CIFOR criteria and indicators were based on
research in large-scale natural forests that are managed for commercial timber
production in Indonesia, Cote d'Ivoire, Brazil, and Cameroon, with additional
sites in Germany, Austria, and the United States. These criteria and indicators
provide a useful framework for evaluating policy, environmental, social, and
production aspects of sustainable forest management and are designed to be readily
adaptable to local conditions. CIFOR is also planning to develop criteria and
indicators for tropical plantations and community-managed forests.
One tool for encouraging voluntary application of sustainable forest management
criteria and indicators to LULUCF projects that have timber or non-timber products
involves forest product certification. Certification is a process that links
market demands for sustainably produced forest products with producers who can
meet those demands. Certification may reward the performance of companies that
adopt sound forestry practices by enabling them to maintain or improve the marketability
of wood or other forest products (FAO, 1997a; WCFSD, 1999). Currently, the Forest
Stewardship Council (FSC) and its accredited certifiers offer one approach to
product certification. Parties might wish to consider whether and under what
conditions encouragement of market certification of forest products could strengthen
the capacity of managed forests to meet carbon mitigation and sustainable development
goals.
The International Standards Organization (ISO), through its ISO 14000 series,
also provides a framework for certifying forest management (and other environmental
management) systems (ISO, 1996). Unlike FSC, the ISO does not identify performance
standards and does not allow a label to be attached to forest products. Instead,
ISO 14000 management standards are designed to allow the setting of specific
environmental and sustainable development criteria for LULUCF projects. Projects
could then be managed on an ongoing basis to attain those goals, and independent
auditors could verify whether the management system was consistent with the
standard.
If Parties wish to implement ISO 14000 management standards for forest or other
projects under the Kyoto Protocol, they would need to define and periodically
update the sustainable development guidelines for LULUCF project activities.
Project participants could then employ the ISO 14000 standards as a means of
assessing compliance with those guidelines, with independent auditing carried
out by an existing pool of accredited private-sector agents. This Special Report
does not analyze the potential cost and time implications of adopting ISO management
standards for LULUCF projects.
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