Towards Forest Sustainability

Sustainable forest management

The CBD definition of the Ecosystem Approach and a set of principles for its application were developed at an expert meeting in Malawi in , known as the Malawi Principles. The CBD definition is as follows. The ecosystem approach is a strategy for the integrated management of land, water and living resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way.

Application of the ecosystem approach will help to reach a balance of the three objectives of the Convention. An ecosystem approach is based on the application of appropriate scientific methodologies focused on levels of biological organization, which encompasses the essential structures, processes, functions and interactions among organisms and their environment. It recognizes that humans, with their cultural diversity , are an integral component of many ecosystems.

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The two concepts, sustainable forest management and the ecosystem approach, aim at promoting conservation and management practices which are environmentally, socially and economically sustainable, and which generate and maintain benefits for both present and future generations. Growing environmental awareness and consumer demand for more socially responsible businesses helped third-party forest certification emerge in the s as a credible tool for communicating the environmental and social performance of forest operations.

There are many potential users of certification, including: With third-party forest certification , an independent organization develops standards of good forest management, and independent auditors issue certificates to forest operations that comply with those standards. Forest certification verifies that forests are well-managed — as defined by a particular standard — and chain-of-custody certification tracks wood and paper products from the certified forest through processing to the point of sale.

This rise of certification led to the emergence of several different systems throughout the world. As a result, there is no single accepted forest management standard worldwide, and each system takes a somewhat different approach in defining standards for sustainable forest management. The largest certification systems now generally have the same structural programmatic requirements.

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Third-party forest certification is an important tool for those seeking to ensure that the paper and wood products they purchase and use come from forests that are well-managed and legally harvested. Incorporating third-party certification into forest product procurement practices can be a centerpiece for comprehensive wood and paper policies that include factors such as the protection of sensitive forest values, thoughtful material selection and efficient use of products.

There are more than fifty certification standards worldwide, addressing the diversity of forest types and tenures.

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This consensus on common thematic areas or criteria effectively provides a common, implicit definition of sustainable forest management. What constitutes a sustainably managed forest will change over time as values held by the public change. The Organization also helps countries in the assessment of their forest resources, definition of the elements of sustainable forest management and monitoring their progress towards it. Although much information on ecologically sustainable managment practices is now available, further organizational change and policy tranformation is needed to see a transition to sustainable practices inplemented on the ground. PEFC-certified table tennis rackets made in Italy. Sustainable forest management Success story:

Globally, the two largest umbrella certification programs are:. The area of forest certified worldwide is growing slowly.

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PEFC is the world's largest forest certification system, with more than two-thirds of the total global certified area certified to its Sustainability Benchmarks. While certification is intended as a tool to enhance forest management practices throughout the world, to date most certified forestry operations are located in Europe and North America. A significant barrier for many forest managers in developing countries is that they lack the capacity to undergo a certification audit and maintain operations to a certification standard.

Although a majority of forests continue to be owned formally by government, the effectiveness of forest governance is increasingly independent of formal ownership. Thus, decentralization of management offers an alternative solution to forest governance.

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The shifting of natural resource management responsibilities from central to state and local governments, where this is occurring, is usually a part of broader decentralization process. The major key to effective decentralization is increased broad-based participation in local-public decision making. In , the World Bank report reveals that local government knows the needs and desires of their constituents better than the national government, while at the same time, it is easier to hold local leaders accountable. Many reasons point to the advocacy of decentralization of forest.

They are often short of resources, may be staffed by people with low education and are sometimes captured by local elites who promote clientelist relation rather than democratic participation. Broadly speaking, the goal of forest conservation has historically not been met when, in contrast with land use changes; driven by demand for food, fuel and profit. The development of National Forest Funds is one way to address the issue of financing sustainable forest management. Appropriate use and long-term conservation of forest genetic resources FGR is a part of sustainable forest management.

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The Organization also helps countries in the assessment of their forest resources, definition of the elements of sustainable forest management and monitoring their progress towards it. FAO helps identify, test and promote innovative, multipurpose forest management approaches and techniques that respond to the need for mitigating and adapting to a changing climate, increased demand for wood and non-wood forest products and services, and threats from fires, pests and natural disasters.

FAO promotes sustainable forest management by working at the international level and through collaborative partnerships to address and help solve regional and global forest-related issues. FAO has recently launched a Sustainable Forest Management Toolbox , a comprehensive online technical package of tools and examples to facilitate and guide the implementation of sustainable forest management in various contexts.

The Toolbox aims to make the wide body of collective knowledge and experience about sustainable forest management more accessible to forest managers and other stakeholders, thereby supporting SFM dissemination and implementation on the ground. Deforestation affected an estimated 13 million hectares per year between and , but thanks to afforestation and natural expansion the net forest loss was 5.

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Accept all Deny all Custom settings. Sustainable forest management means the environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable management of forests for present and future generations. Yet sustainable forest management is an evolving process, and the parameters defining it change over time based on the latest scientific knowledge and society's understanding of the concept.

The forest ecosystem is highly complex, and influenced by numerous external factors. Similarly, different forest types in different regions of the world require different sustainable management strategies. This means that criteria for sustainable forest management must be constantly adapted to new circumstances; they must reflect the national context and the specific ecological and environmental conditions, as well as social, economic, political, cultural and spiritual dimensions.