Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management

The book contains the peer-reviewed, revised and edited invited keynote, overview and review papers presented at a IUFRO/CIFOR/FAO conference for each of the seven generic sustainability criteria for forest management. The sustainability criteria covered are: (i) social and economic functions and conditions; (ii) legal and institutional frameworks; (iii) productive capacity; (iv) ecosystem health and vitality; (v) soil and water protection; (vi) global carbon cycles; and (vii) biological diversity. Criteria and indicators (C&I) are a relatively new tool that have been developed to help better define sustainable forest management and assist with measuring change in forest condition and output of goods and services from forests. Application of C&I in forests has the following potential benefits: (i) raising awareness of, and political commitment for, Sustainable Forest Management; (ii) providing a tool for reporting, at a range of levels, on the state and trend in condition of forests; (iii) when forming part of an environmental management system, providing a way of assessing progress against management objectives, and thus supporting adaptive forest management; and (iv) providing an important plank for the certification of forests as sustainability management, and the associated green labelling of forest products.