Unit 1: Sustainable Forest Management and the Global Forest Estate€¦ · Unit One: Sustainable Forest Management and the Global Forest Estate Unit Information 2! Unit Overview 2!

Unit One: Sustainable Forest Management and the Global Forest Estate

Unit Information 2

Unit Overview 2 Unit Aims 3 Unit Learning Outcomes 3 Unit Interdependencies 3

Key Readings 4

Further Readings 6

References 7

1.0 Sustainable forest management 10

Section Overview 10 Section Learning Outcomes 10 1.1 From forest clearance to sustainable yield forestry 10 1.2 From sustainable yield to sustainable forest management 13 1.3 The institutionalisation of sustainable forest management 21 Section 1 Self Assessment Questions 28

2.0 The global forest estate and the supply and trade of forest products and services 29

Section Overview 29 Section Learning Outcomes 29 2.1 Defining forests 29 2.2 The global forest estate 35 2.3 Supply and trade of forest products and services 43 Section 2 Self Assessment Questions 49

Unit Summary 50

Unit Self Assessment Questions 51

Key Terms and Concepts 52

P585 Sustainable Forest Management Unit 1

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UNIT INFORMATION

Unit Overview This unit provides an overview of sustainable forest management (SFM) and a brief assessment of the global forest estate. Rather than begin by defining forests, we start by examining the history of human–forest interactions from the initial clearance of forests for agriculture, through the scientific forest management of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries to our more recent preoccupation with sustainability. Once we have defined what it is we are referring to when we talk about sustainable forest management, the final part of Section 1 of this unit considers the institutionalisation of SFM in terms of international policy processes and supra-state agencies, international civil society organisations, and trade associations.

The second half of Unit 1 provides a discussion of the meaning of the word ‘forest’ as a way into thinking about the increasing number of people and institutions claiming interests in and rights over forests. This section pays particular attention to the FAO’s global forest resource assessments, providing a brief but critical introduction to the data they contain and the information sources used in compiling them. Besides distinguishing among different types of wooded land according to forest characteristics, designated functions, and biogeography, Section 2 also discusses recent trends in global forest cover, drivers of forest land use change, and the global supply and trade of forest products and services.


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Unit Aims • To examine the origins and history of forest management and to define the

terms ‘forest’ and ‘sustainable forest management’ (SFM).

• To review the institutionalisation of SFM within state, civil society, and market agencies and organisation.

• To examine and explain recent trends in global forest cover.

• To outline the diversity of products and services provided by the world’s forests and comment briefly on patterns of trade.

Unit Learning Outcomes By the end of this unit students should be able to:

• distinguish between and explain the origins of ‘sustained yield, scientific forestry’, and ‘sustainable forest management’

• discuss the key institutions of SFM policy and governance at the global and regional scales

• explain the changes that have occurred in the extent, distribution and type of forests as well as the classification of the world’s forests according to the degree of human influence on their character and reproduction, their designated function(s) and their geographical location

• distinguish among the provisioning, cultural, regulating, and supporting services that forest ecosystems contribute to human well-being, and outline the main features of the global supply of, and trade in, forest products and services

Unit Interdependencies This is the introductory unit and as such it makes reference to many of the topics and issues that are dealt with in greater depth in the subsequent units. In particular it introduces systems of forest classification that are also utilised in Units 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. It introduces the idea of ecosystem services, which is developed in Unit 2 and provides a classificatory system for the forest goods and services that are described in Unit 4 on Forests and Human Well-being. Mention is made towards the end of the unit of the carbon sequestration role of forests and this is dealt with in much greater depth in Units 2 and 9. The institutional history of SFM dealt with in Section 1 of this unit receives further consideration in the section on forest policy and governance in Unit 3, whilst forest certification is the prime focus of Unit 8.


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KEY READINGS

Section 1

Higman S, Mayers J, Bass S, Judd N, Nussbaum R (2005) The Sustainable Forestry Handbook: A Practical Guide for Tropical Forest Managers on Implementing New Standards, 2nd edn. Earthscan, London, pp. 4–26.

These three short chapters set out a practical definition of sustainable forest management, with a brief review of its origins, before going on to explain why forest managers should implement SFM systems and setting out some of the main initiatives and systems for assessing forest management sustainability.

Sayer J, Maginnis S (2005) New challenges for forest management. In: Sayer J, Maginnis S (eds) Forests in Landscapes: Ecosystem Approaches to Sustainability. Earthscan, London, UK and Sterling, VA, pp. 1–16.

Sayer and Maginnis detail the contextual factors and trends that have led to the emergence of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s ‘Ecosystem Approach’ to natural resource management and the UN Forum on Forests’ Sustainable Forest Management. They differentiate among, and provide a very useful multi-dimensional comparison of, ‘Sustained Yield Forestry’ ‘Sustainable Forest Management’, and ‘Ecosystems Approaches’.

Section 2

FAO (2010b) Global Forest Resources Assessment 2010: Key Findings. UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, Italy.

This is a summary of the FAO’s most recent assessment of global forest resources. It is a short document and you should be aware of all of the key pieces of information that it contains.

Geist HJ, Lambin EF (2005) Proximate causes and underlying driving forces of tropical deforestation. In: Sayer J (ed) The Earthscan Reader in Forestry and Development. Earthscan, London, pp. 59–71.

Drawing on over 150 case studies of forest cover loss, the authors analyse the causes of tropical deforestation and construct a valuable explanatory model.

Hansen MC, Stehman SV, Potapov PV (2010) Quantification of global gross forest cover loss. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published online before print 26 April 2010, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0912668107.

Available from: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/04/07/0912668107.abstract

This excellent short paper reports on a sample survey of satellite imagery that paints a very different picture of forest cover loss than that portrayed by the FAO data. A careful reading of the paper explains some of the reasons for the difference.


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Sayer J (2005) Challenging the myths: what is really happening in the world's forests? In: Sayer J (ed) The Earthscan Reader in Forestry and Development. Earthscan, London, pp. 1–7.

The introductory chapter to the module’s core text makes fascinating reading, as it provides a real insider’s view of the state of the world’s forests. Sayer was the Founding Director General of the Center for International Forestry Research in Indonesia and casts his critical eye on some of the myths surrounding global forest cover change.


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FURTHER READINGS

FAO (2006) Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005: Progress Towards Sustainable Forest Management. UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, Italy.

Available from ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/008/A0400E/A0400E00.pdf

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) compiles Global Forest Resource Assessments (commonly called FRAs) every five years. The Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005 (FRA 2005) examines the current status and recent trends for about 40 variables covering the extent, condition, uses, and values of forests and other wooded land, with the aim of assessing all benefits from forest resources. Information has been collated from 229 countries and territories for three points in time: 1990, 2000, and 2005. The results are presented according to seven thematic elements of sustainable forest management.

FAO (2010b) Global Forest Resources Assessment 2010. UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, Italy.

Available from: http://www.fao.org/forestry/fra/fra2010/en/

This is the most up-to-date FRA available until 2015.

SCBD (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity) (2009) Sustainable Forest Management, Biodiversity and Livelihoods: A Good Practice Guide. SCBD, Montreal, pp. 47 + iii.

Available from: http://www.cbd.int/development/doc/cbd-good-practice-guide-forestry-booklet-web-en.pdf

Excellent, up-to-date, guide to the CBD and IUCN’s version of sustainable forest management and its policy implications.

UNCED (1992) Non-legally Binding Authoritative Statement of Principles for a Global Consensus on the Management, Conservation and Sustainable Development of all Types of Forests.

Available from: http://www.un.org/documents/ga/conf151/aconf15126-3annex3.htm

The ‘Forest Principles’ that were one of the products of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, form one of the most important institutional starting points for moving towards globally agreed principles of SFM.

UNFF (2007) Non-Legally Binding Instrument on all Types of Forests. United Nations, New York.

Available from: http://www.un.org/esa/forests/pdf/ERes2007_40E.pdf

This Instrument sets the framework for international forest policy aimed at promoting the conservation and sustainable management of the world’s forests.


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REFERENCES

Evelyn J (1662) Sylva: or, a Discourse of Forest Trees, and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesty’s Dominions.

Available from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chemheritage/3228968582/sizes/o/ [Accessed 26 July 2013]

FAO (2006) Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005: Progress Towards Sustainable Forest Management. UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, Italy.

FAO (2007) State of the World's Forests 2007. UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Rome, Italy.

Available from: http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/a0773e/a0773e00.HTM [Accessed 26 July 2013]

FAO (2009) appears on page 44 as source of 2.3.1

FAO (2010a) Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management. UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, Italy.

Available from : http://www.fao.org/forestry/ci/16609/en/ [Accessed 22 June 2010]

FAO (2010b) Global Forest Resources Assessment 2010: Key Findings. UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, Italy.

Available from: http://www.fao.org/forestry/fra/fra2010/en/ [Accessed 26 July 2013]

FAO Forestry (2010) Towards Sustainable Forest Management. UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Rome, Italy.

Available from: http://www.fao.org/forestry/sfm/en/ [Accessed 26 July 2013]

FRA (2010) Country Reporting Process. UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Rome, Italy.

Available from: http://www.fao.org/forestry/45515/en/ [Accessed 26 July 2013]

Forero OA, Woodgate GR (2002) The semantics of human security in North-west Amazonia: between indigenous peoples management of the world and the USA’s state security policy for Latin America. In: Page E, Redclift M (eds) Human Security and the Environment: International Comparisons. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, pp. 244–266.


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Foster JB (2005) [1994] The vulnerable planet: a short economic history of the environment. In: King L, McCarthy D Environmental Sociology: from Analysis to Action. Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, MD and Oxford, UK, pp. 3–15.

Fukuyama F (1989) The End of History? National Interest 16 (Summer) 3–18.

Geist HJ, Lambin EF (2005) Proximate causes and underlying driving forces of tropical deforestation. In: Sayer J (ed) The Earthscan Reader in Forestry and Development. Earthscan, London, pp. 59–71.

Hansen MC, Stehman SV, Potapov PV (2010) Quantification of global gross forest cover loss. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published online before print 26 April 2010, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0912668107.

Available from: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/04/07/0912668107.abstract [Accessed 26 July 2013]

Higman S, Mayers J, Bass S, Judd N, Nussbaum R (2004) The Sustainable Forestry Handbook: A Practical Guide for Tropical Forest Managers on Implementing New Standards, 2nd edn. Earthscan, London.

ITTO (1994 and 2006) International Tropical Timber Agreements.

Available from: http://www.itto.int/en/itta/ [Accessed 26 July 2013]

IUCN (2009) Billion Hectares of Land have Potential for Forest Restoration, Study Shows. International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Available from: http://www.iucn.org/?4255/Billion-hectares-of-forests-with-potential-for-restoration-study-shows [Accessed 14 November 2013]

Lowood HE (1990) The calculating forester: quantification, cameral science and the emergence of scientific forestry management in Germany. In: Frängsmyr T, Heilbron JL, Rider RE The Quantifying Spirit in the 18th Century. University of California Press, Berkley, CA and Oxford, UK, pp. 315–342.

MEA (2005) Ecosystems and Human Wellbeing: Synthesis. Island Press. Washington DC.

Olsen DM, Dinerstein E, Wikramanayake ED et al (2001) Terrestrial ecoregions of the world: a new map of life on earth. BioScience 51(11) 933–938.

Available from: http://worldwildlife.org/publications/terrestrial-ecoregions-of-the-world [Accessed 26 July 2013]

Pedraza Ruiz R (2010) Local Communities and Biodiversity Conservation in the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve. Seminar Presentation at The Institute for the Study of the Americas, 12 March 2010.


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Pinchot G (1998) [1947] Breaking New Ground. Island Press Washington DC.

Sayer J (2005) Challenging the myths: what is really happening in the world's forests? In: Sayer J (ed) The Earthscan Reader in Forestry and Development. Earthscan, London, pp. 1–7.

Sayer J, Maginnis S (2005) New challenges for forest management. In: Sayer J, Maginnis S (eds) Forests in Landscapes: Ecosystem Approaches to Sustainability. Earthscan, London, UK and Sterling, VA, pp. 1–16.

SCBD (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity) (2009) Sustainable Forest Management, Biodiversity and Livelihoods: A Good Practice Guide. SCBD, Montreal, pp. 47 + iii.

Schlich W (1889–1896) A Manual of Forestry. Bradbury and Agnew, London.

Sierra Gorda (no date)

Available from: http://sierragorda.net/en/ [Accessed 12 November 2013]

UNCED (1992) Non-legally Binding Authoritative Statement of Principles for a Global Consensus on the Management, Conservation and Sustainable Development of all Types of Forests.

Available from: http://www.un.org/documents/ga/conf151/aconf15126-3annex3.htm [Accessed 12 November 2013]

UNEP-WCMC (2010) Forests Homepage.

Available from: http://www.unep-wcmc.org/forest/homepage.htm [Accessed 21 June 2010]

UNFF (2007) Non-Legally Binding Instrument on All Types of Forests. United Nations, New York.

Woodland Trust (2010) The Woodland Trust Past and Present. Woodland Trust.

Available from: http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/en/about-us/past-present/Pages/past-present.aspx [Accessed 26 July 2013]

World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) (1987) Our Common Future. Oxford University Press (OUP), Oxford.


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1.0 SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENT

Section Overview The history of forest management stretches back more than 1000 years. Documentary evidence of concern with the sustainability of timber resources becomes increasingly frequent during the second half of the last millennium and is particularly marked in the German preoccupation with forest mathematics of the 18th century. Thus we begin this unit and this module by reviewing the origins of our current preoccupation with sustainable forest management in the sustained-yield, scientific forestry that was established in Europe and the USA in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.

The rapid development of industrial society during the 20th century, not only led to an acceleration of economic growth and social welfare for, in the latter decades of the century, we also became increasingly aware of the negative environmental impacts of industrial development in terms of diminished quantities and qualities of natural resources. As the world awoke to these negative environmental trends, a new policy imperative ‘sustainable development’ came to prominence. ‘Sustainable forest management’ (SFM) has been defined as forestry’s contribution to ‘sustainable development’ and once we have arrived at a satisfactory understanding of its origins, we shall end this section by reviewing the institutionalisation of SFM within international policy processes and supra-state agencies, international civil society organisations, and trade associations.

Section Learning Outcomes By the end of this section students should be able to:

• explain the origins and objectives of ‘scientific forestry’

• explain the key drivers of sustainable forest management and the main processes and policies leading to the institutionalisation of sustainable forest management between 1960 and 2010

1.1 From forest clearance to sustainable yield forestry Human history has been closely bound to forests since our early hominid ancestors descended from the trees to colonise the African savannah around four million years ago. As far as we can tell from fossil remains and geological deposits, between 1.5 million and 500 000 years ago Homo erectus gained control of fire and began to use it for cooking and hunting. At some point over the last 200 000 years people began to use fire for ecosystem management, clearing patches of forest to create spaces for agricultural crops: a practice that continues to this day.

Evidence of our past use and management of forests can be found in biological records (such as pollen cores taken from lake bed sediments or peat bogs), landscape archaeology (forests are particularly good at preserving archaeological features) and historical records. The clearing of land for agriculture and livestock changes the relative abundance of species and evidence of early clearance can be


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found in pollen records, while evidence of forest management can be found in landscape features such boundary banks and ditches. In countries with long histories with limited external interference, historical records may record forest production and management as much as 1000 years ago. China has a long documented history of forest management and William of Normandy’s record (the Domesday Book) of the property he obtained following his conquest of ‘England’ in 1066 catalogues the areas of woodland he acquired and their capacity to produce timber and sustain livestock.

While forest utilisation may have been strictly controlled in pre-modern times, management was not subjected to scientific principles. The origins of ‘modern forestry’ emerge with the Enlightenment and can be traced at least to the work of a certain John Evelyn. In 1662 Evelyn – himself a Fellow of the Royal Society – presented a paper to Britain’s National Academy of Science: Sylva or, A Discourse of Forest-Trees, and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesty's Dominions (see illustration in 1.1.1). Sylva was written to encourage landowners to plant trees to provide timber for the British Navy at a time when the supply of great forest oaks was already in terminal decline.

1.1.1 Evelyn's Sylva 1662

Source: Evelyn (1662) Cover page.


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While some plantations were established as a result of Evelyn’s treatise, with the expansion of the British Empire and access to superior tropical timbers from the colonies, the need to develop scientific forestry in the UK was not quickly appreciated. In 18th century Germany, however, economic rivalry between the numerous small states or ‘Kleinstaaterei’ prompted the rationalisation of timber production and it was there, we can say, that the first concepts of ‘sustainable forestry’ were born.

German scientific forestry in the 18th century entailed the pursuit of maximum sustained profit and thus maximising sustainable timber yield. In order to achieve this, large quantities of area-based standing timber and production data were generated, relating to tree ages, sizes, and timber volumes. The German quantitative tradition of forest management was based around three core principles: ‘minimum diversity’ or maximum uniformity, ‘the balance sheet’ (volume increment and withdrawals through harvesting), and ‘sustained yield’ (Lowood 1990).

Most, if not quite all, of the principles, methods, and measurement techniques that were developed in Germany during the 18th century continue to inform sustainable yield forestry today. Some of the most important internationally recognised forestry measurement conventions are described in 1.1.2.

1.1.2 Common conventions in forestry measurements

Wood is conventionally measured in terms of its volume in cubic metres (m3). Although freshly cut wood may be sold by the tonne, this measurement lacks precision because, once felled, it begins to dry out and thus loses weight.

At approximately 1500 kg m-3, the specific gravity of solid wood (that is the solid material of cell walls) varies very little between species, but the relative proportions of cell wall material to space varies enormously so that the dry weight of different species of wood or timber can vary from under 200 to over 1200 kg m-3. The variation in weight of freshly cut wood is much less and is usually somewhere between 1000 and 1500 kg m-

3.

The approximate volume of standing trees is estimated using the geometrical formula for calculating the volume (v) of a cone: v = (π × radius2 × height)/3. To facilitate this measurement and avoid error due to abnormal taper at the base of the tree associated with root buttresses, the normal convention is to measure the diameter of trees at what is called ‘breast height’. This is located 1.3 m above ground level. ‘Diameter at Breast Height’ (DBH or dbh) is usually measured in centimetres.

In order to be able to calculate the maximum sustainable yield of timber that a given forest or stand of trees can produce, we need to know the rate at which the trees are growing. This is conventionally expressed in cubic metres per hectare per year (m3 ha-1 yr-1). Once we know how much standing volume we have and the rate at which it is increasing, we can determine the maximum sustainable yield of timber.

Source: unit author

The development of Britain’s colonial economy in India involved the rapid, almost uncontrolled expansion of the agricultural frontier under the aegis of the East India Company, followed by the exploitation of forests for the construction of infrastructure such as railways. The rapid deforestation and forest degradation brought about by these developments led to a realisation of the need to establish scientific forestry in India and to plan for sustained timber yields: with no home-grown tradition of scientific forestry, however, Britain turned to Germany for the necessary expertise.


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When the Indian Forest Service was established in 1864, its first Inspector General was the German forester Dietrich Brandis. Brandis was succeeded in 1881 by another German, William Schlich, Professor of Forestry at the Royal Indian Engineering College.

Schlich left India in 1885, returned to England and set up a training college for foresters where, besides training the first cohorts of ‘professional foresters’, he set about systematising his experiences in a series of forestry manuals. From there, in 1905, Schlich moved to Oxford University to become the first director of the Oxford Forestry Institute and, it is fair to say, the founder of British forestry science. Schlich’s profound influence on the development of sustained yield, scientific forestry spread well beyond Britain and his five-volume Manual of Forestry (1889–1896), was used as a standard forestry text throughout the British Empire, until the Second World War.

1.2 From sustainable yield to sustainable forest management

Maximising sustainable yield through increasing uniformity

Schlich also had a strong influence on another key figure in the establishment of scientific forestry, Gifford Pinchot, who went on to establish and become the first Chief of the United States Forest Service (see 1.2.1).

1.2.1 Gifford Pinchot (1865—1946)

1st Chief of the US Forest Service, 1905—1910 Gifford Pinchot was born in Connecticut, where he grew up with a great passion for the outdoors and, in particular, a great love of woodlands. He went to Yale University, but with no option to do so there, on graduation he headed off to France to study forestry, before returning to the USA to work as a resident estate forester.

As his skills and reputation as a forester grew, Pinchot became involved with the US National Academy of Sciences’ National Forest Commission. In 1896, together with other members of the Commission he travelled extensively in the western states, investigating forest areas for possible production forest reserves. In 1898 he became chief of the Department of the Interior’s Division of Forestry and subsequently, when the Division was transferred to the Department of Agriculture in 1905, the first Chief of the US Forest Service. With the support of his long-time friend and now US President Theodor (Teddy) Roosevelt, Pinchot completely overhauled and professionalised forest management in the USA and significantly expanded the federal forest reserve. In 1905, when he took office, there were 60 forest reserves, covering just over 20 million hectares. By the time he left office in 1910 the number of reserves had grown to 150, with a total area of some 70 million hectares. The effective organisation and professional management of forests that he established was undertaken in the name of ‘conservation’. In much the same way as German ‘sustainable yield forestry’ the goal of forest conservation was to maintain timber production capacity in the long term. Pinchot himself wrote (1998 p. 27) ‘When the Gay Nineties began, the common word for our forests was “inexhaustible”. To waste timber was a virtue and not a crime. There would always be plenty of timber ... The lumbermen ... regarded forest devastation as normal. ... And as for sustained yield, no such idea had ever entered their heads. What talk there was about forest protection was no more to the average American than the buzzing of a mosquito, and just about as irritating’. He went on to say ‘Without natural resources life itself is impossible. From birth to death, natural resources, transformed for human use, feed, clothe, shelter, and


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transport us. Upon them we depend for every material necessity, comfort, convenience, and protection in our lives. Without abundant resources prosperity is out of reach.’ (1998 p. 505)

Source: unit author, drawing on information available from Forest History website

Schlich and Pinchot were both born during the Industrial Revolution and both went on, within the field of forest science, to become important figures in the subsequent scientific-technological revolution that was to transform all aspects of human existence during the 20th century. ‘This transformation’ writes Foster (in King and McCarthy 2005 p. 5) ‘was aimed at extending both the division of labour and the division of nature, and in the process both were transformed’. Labour was transformed by scientific management that altered people’s relation to the production process. Under ‘scientific management’ workers became ‘instruments of production’, to be combined with capital in the most efficient way to minimise the costs of production. The archetypal example from the early 20th century was Henry Ford’s automobile assembly line, which produced millions of cars for popular consumption, with each worker employed to carry out a single repetitive task on one car after another. Just like the German quantitative tradition of forest management, efficient automobile production required ‘minimum diversity’.

Scientific, sustained yield forestry maximised the quantities of nutrients, light, and water reserved for the production of timber by simplifying forest ecosystems. The homogenisation of species, age, size, and spacing within forest compartments allowed for more efficient management operations from planting to final felling. The removal of suppressed trees during thinning operations not only concentrated growth on the largest, straightest trees and increased the uniformity of the remaining crop but, by removing smaller diameter and shorter stems before they became completely suppressed, also helped to prevent pest and disease problems and avoided the build-up of deadwood, reducing the likelihood and intensity of forest fires.

Thus, the rationalisation of timber production through the application of scientific forestry was employed throughout the first half of the 20th century in the earnest attempts of foresters to maximise the sustainable yield of timber from carefully managed semi-natural forests and well-designed plantations. Throughout Europe, following significant losses of standing volume during the years of the Second World War (1939–1945), the 1950s and 1960s saw a redoubling of efforts to improve both production and productivity. In the UK, the Forestry Commission accelerated its programme of land acquisition and expanded its area of forest plantations through the afforestation of marginal agricultural land and the conversion of native semi-natural woodlands to exotic conifer plantations. While a native broadleaved woodland might yield on average between two and six cubic metres of timber per year, exotic conifers introduced from the European mainland and the USA could yield two, three, four or even five times the volume of timber. On the most favourable sites with the most productive species, mean annual volume increments of 30 m3 ha-1 could be achieved!

Post-War growth in the forest industry was matched by wide-ranging improvements in social conditions. In numerous countries across Europe, and to some extent in the USA, post-War governments established state provision of education, healthcare, and social housing, while average real incomes rose dramatically. Car ownership, previously restricted to a minority of wealthy individuals became widespread and


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allowed people to travel further afield as their leisure time increased. By the early 1960s, the troubles of the War years were beginning to fade and a new era of prosperity was dawning. The application of industrial technologies to everything from farming and forestry to food and furniture manufacture created the impression of the complete control of the vagaries of nature through the application of rational, scientific management.

Thinking back over the discussion so far, what drawbacks if any would you associate with the maximisation of sustained timber yield through the application of scientific forestry?

Answer.

The key point to focus on is that maximisation of sustainable timber yield is premised on the minimisation of diversity within a given stand of trees in terms of species, age and tree size. While this uniformity makes management interventions simpler and more efficient, with its unique focus on efficient timber production it neglects other values that we have come to associate with forests over the last 50 years. Single-species, single-size, single-age forests are neither particularly aesthetically pleasing nor very hospitable places in terms of non-crop species. Furthermore, even-age monocultures can be extremely vulnerable to pests and diseases.

The problem with scientific forestry: early signs of discontent in the UK

Increasing disposable incomes, leisure time, and mobility resulted in a growing demand for access to forests for recreation purposes. From the 1960s, as more and more people headed out to the country, public criticism of the national forest estate began to mount. The regimented lines of exotic conifers were seen as ‘unnatural’ and the dark and lifeless forest floor beneath the canopy, bare and uninviting. In response, the Forestry Commission appointed its first ‘Landscape Consultant’ and the public were given a ‘right to roam’ in Commission forests.

From the 1970s, conservation and amenity issues became more central in the Forestry Commission's forest policy and planning. Emphasis was increasingly given to maintaining ‘woodland character’ and recognising the importance of broadleaves for wildlife conservation. The landscape began to be considered on a far wider scale, and the restructuring that followed resulted in woods which were aesthetically pleasing as well as highly productive. Forests were also identified as potentially important wildlife reserves, and conservation became a special responsibility of Forestry Commission staff.

1972 saw the establishment of the Woodland Trust. The Trust’s founder was Kenneth Watkins, a retired farmer who had become concerned about the rapidly disappearing small, native, broadleaved woodlands that had been felled for timber during the Second World War and many had subsequently been restocked with exotic conifers. Together with his wife and a small group of friends, Watkins set out on a mission to build membership and acquire woodlands and land for woodland planting. The aim was to conserve native woodlands, replace woodlands that had been lost to agricultural expansion and restore ancient woodland sites that had been converted to commercial conifer plantations. All this was to be done at the same time as providing open public access for quiet recreation. The aims of the Trust caught the public


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imagination and today it has almost 200 000 members and owns more than 1000 woodland sites covering nearly 20 000 ha (Woodland Trust 2010).

By the time the 1980s arrived, domestic timber demand began to decline as British timber processing plants lost out to international competition and government funding was significantly reduced in the wake of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s monetarist financial policy and economic deregulation. Significant parcels of the national forest estate were sold off to investment funds and private forestry companies, while depressed prices for home-grown timber resulted in the ‘under-management’ of much private woodland.

Changing context of forest management

The economic and political changes that began in the UK and USA in the late 1970s and early 1980s have gathered pace and over the last 30 years and swept around the world. Following a prolonged period of state expansion, during which the majority of the world’s forests, together with many of its other natural assets such as subsurface minerals and oil were assigned to state ownership, the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s witnessed the rolling back of the state and the virtual global application of neo-liberal economic policy. Unable to maintain pace with the economic and political forces unleashed during the 1980s, the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of the decade, allowing Francis Fukuyama famously to proclaim ‘what we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-War history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalisation of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government’ (Fukuyama 1989 p. 4).

It was not only politics and economics that changed in the final decades of the 20th century. From the 1960s, evidence began to mount about the environmental impacts of economic growth and industrial development. In the 1960s people like Rachel Carson started to catalogue the impacts that the industrialisation of agriculture and forestry were having on biological diversity, while in the 1970s concern grew over impending resource scarcity. While evidence of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations has been available since the 1950s and 1960s, it was not until the 1980s, when global mean temperature curves began rising dramatically, that global warming theories and concerns finally displaced fears over global cooling. All in all then, the last three decades have seen the emergence and institutionalisation of significant concerns over environmental deterioration and growing certainty that the world’s forests and forest management practices are deeply implicated in both the impacts and the causes of environmental deterioration.

As doubt has been cast on scientific forestry and the wisdom of maximising timber yields at the expense of all else, there have been moves towards forest conservation, such as that exemplified by the case of the Woodland Trust in the UK. At the same time, the establishment of forest reserves for biodiversity conservation restricts the economic potential of forests and their role in national development endeavours and, through their exclusion, may also threaten the livelihoods of forest-dependent people. In this context there has been growing interest in the small-scale, ecologically and culturally specific forest management systems that have endured despite the fashion for ‘scientific rationalisation’ or exclusionary conservation designations. 1.2.2 offers a brief glimpse into the lives of the Tukano people who inhabit the Amazon rainforest in the south of Colombia.


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1.2.2 The Tukano’s ‘Management of the World’

For the Tukano, the notion of sustainable forest management is a mystery. Although they have developed sophisticated systems for manipulating production from chagras (forest gardens), rastrojos (old gardens where particular species are favoured as elements of secondary forest) and trochas (linear gardens along the footpaths that connect different habitats and indigenous settlements), they do not distinguish themselves from the forest as we might: for them the management of their society and environment is integrated within what they call the ‘management of the world’. According to the Tukano, their well-being and health depend on taking care of their ‘trade’ in energy with other beings, such as the ‘fish-people’, ‘game-people’ and various ‘plant-people’. This 'trade' is accomplished by shamans who negotiate for the Tukano with the spirit guardians of the other forest people.

Indigenous management does not simply relate to crop production and hunting; spiritual and aesthetic dimensions are also involved. The different spaces of production just mentioned are ‘humanised’ and individual well-being relies on a close integration within, and deep understanding of, both the social group and the forest. The close integration of ecological, aesthetic and spiritual dimensions within the lives of indigenous Amazonians such as the Tukano has led ethnoscientists to write about the ‘humanised rainforest’. The fact that such ways of living have developed and endured over millennia underscores the need not just for more sustainable forms of forest management but for humans to manage their demands on the world’s natural resources.

Source: unit author drawing on Forero and Woodgate (2002).

In their discussion of ‘new challenges for forest management’, Sayer and Maginnis (2005) have summarised some of the more important underlying trends that have prompted moves towards more ‘integrated and holistic’ systems of forest management (FM). These ‘drivers’ of sustainable forest management are set out in the table in 1.2.3.

1.2.3 Drivers of sustainable forest management

Driver Content

Broadening FM objectives

Timber production no longer the sole or even primary objective: forest dependent livelihoods and lifestyles, biodiversity conservation, carbon storage, etc.

Codifying good FM practice

National laws, performance standards, human rights and commercial interest are all driving best practice in FM.

Pluralism in FM systems

Recognition of diversity in FM systems and that this should be encouraged. There is no ‘one-size fits all’ SFM system.

Subsidiarity in FM FM decision making and responsibility are being devolved to lowest appropriate levels consistent with capabilities. State ownership and management is on the decline.

Globalisation FM increasingly influenced by global forces: corporations, banks, macroeconomic trends, poverty reduction policy, etc.

Climate change FM adaptation to and mitigation of climate change.

Governance SFM requires effective institutions, the rule of law, and stakeholder participation/civil society mobilisation.

Source: unit author drawing on Sayer and Maginnis (2005) pp. 6—7.


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Defining sustainable forest management

Think back over what you have read in this unit so far and consider what this implies in terms of forest management. Then spend a few minutes jotting down your own definition of ‘sustainable forest management’ before reading on to see how other people have defined it.

Higman et al (2005 p. 4) point out that ‘SFM has been described as forestry’s contribution to sustainable development’. The concept of sustainable development (SD) has been with us for at least 30 years now and the definition that is still the most frequently cited is the one provided by the World Commission on Environment and Development in its 1987 report Our Common Future. The Commission defined SD as development that ‘meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (WCED 1987 p. 8). This definition clearly has a lot in common with the original objectives of the 18th century German forest mathematicians whose work we discussed in Section 1.1. Sir William Schlich and Gifford Pinchot would also have great sympathy with this definition, which could just as well be used to explain sustained yield scientific forestry.

What we have learnt in Section 1.2, however, is that over the past half century a whole range of new demands and constraints are being placed on the world’s forests, so that we need to go a little further than the WCED definition. We might begin by saying that SFM is ‘forestry that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’, but the new economic, social, and ecological realities of the 21st century, demand a somewhat more detailed specification. Today we have come to recognise that, in addition to providing people with supplies of materials goods such as timber and non-timber products, forests also provide non-material, cultural benefits relating to spiritual, religious, aesthetic, and recreational needs. Beyond these material and non-material goods, forests also help to regulate numerous processes that are essential to human health and well-being (air and water quality, climate, erosion control) as well as supporting all life on earth through the production of oxygen, soils, habitats, etc. Collectively, these four sets of benefits that we derive from forests are increasingly referred to as (provisioning, cultural, regulating, and supporting) ‘ecosystem services’ (MEA 2005).

1.2.4 Definitions of sustainable forest management

Higman et al (2005 p. 4): ‘the best available practices, based on current scientific and traditional knowledge, which allow multiple objectives and needs to be met, without degrading the forest resource’.

ITTO (1998) ‘the process of managing forests to achieve one or more clearly specified objectives of management with regard to the production of a continuous flow of desired forest products and services, without undue reduction of their inherent value and future productivity and without undue undesirable effects on the physical and social environment’. (Cited in Higman et al 2005 p. 4)

FAO (2010b) ‘aims to ensure that the goods and services derived from the forest meet present-day needs while at the same time securing their continued availability and contribution to long-term development’.

Source: unit author drawing on the specified sources.


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Recognition of this broad array of services that forests provide to society has promoted numerous definitions of sustainable forest management, a limited selection of which are set out in 1.2.4.

Other people and institutions prefer not to opt for simple definitions, but instead set out thematic elements of SFM or the principles that should be followed and criteria that define what these principles mean in terms of forest management practice. We will review some of these shortly when we consider the institutionalisation of SFM in Section 1.3. Others still prefer not to use the phrase ‘sustainable forest management’ at all, perhaps because they believe that it is impossible to judge sustainability. Some of the alternatives include ‘sound forest stewardship’, ‘well-managed forests’ or ‘ecosystem approaches’ to forest management.

Ecosystem approaches are promoted by the 1992 UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which has set out 12 principles of ecosystem management. Sayer and Maginnis pay particular attention to ecosystems approaches in their 2005 discussion of ‘challenges to forest management’. They also provide a very useful comparison of sustained yield forestry, SFM, and ecosystems approaches, which is reproduced in the table in 1.2.5. For our purposes, the most import thing to note about ecosystems approaches to forest management is that there is no focus on the production of timber or non-timber products. Instead, the primary concern is with integrating the use and conservation of biological diversity.

1.2.5 Comparing approaches to forest management: from ‘sustained yield’ to ‘ecosystem approaches’

Criteria for comparison

Sustained yield forestry

Sustainable forest management

Ecosystem approaches

Tangibility of goals…

… is high — commodities … is high —products and services

… is low — equity and sustainability

Resource management objectives…

… are based on long-standing technocratic traditions and legal mandates, focused on production

… incorporate a broader range of environmental and social objectives

… are a matter of societal choices

Control of resource management decision…

… is generally centralized under responsible forest management agency

… is still usually centralized though other management options are emerging

… is decentralized to the lowest appropriate level

Hierarchical approach…

… is one of command and control — ‘we manage’

… is slightly more open — ‘we manage, you participate’

… us replaced by the concept of social learning — ‘we are learning together’


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1.2.5 continued

Criteria for comparison

Sustained yield forestry

Sustainable forest management

Ecosystem approaches

Spatial scale is considered…

… at site level only (i.e. management unit)

… primarily at site level, though with some consideration of externalities

… to incorporate the wider landscape-scale linkages

Knowledge is based on…

… scientific and technological knowledge

… expert knowledge, supplemented with broader stakeholder inputs

… a more balanced use of scientific and indigenous and local knowledge, innovations and practices

Sectoral approach is…

… narrowly focused … broadly focused … cross-sectoral

Assumes… … predictability and stability

… adaptive management — but within defined limits

… need for resilience, anticipation of change

Associated tools…

… are those of classic silviculture

… include codes of forestry practices, criteria and indicators etc

… are not yet available. EsA have no case law and need practical testing

Primary concern…

… is on sustainable commodity production

… is on balancing conservation, production and use of forest goods and services

… is on balancing — and integrating — conservation and use of biological diversity

Source: Sayer and Maginnis (2005) p. 10.


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1.3 The institutionalisation of sustainable forest management

Over the last 50 years, sustainable forest management has been institutionalised through three sets of interrelated processes. The earliest processes involved the reform of state forestry policies in highly industrialised countries. We reviewed early signs of discontent with sustainable yield, scientific forestry by considering the British case in Section 1.2. It was not long, however, before concern became more widespread, leading to the negotiation and establishment of international timber trade agreements and principles for sustainable forest management. Finally, and most recently, there has been intergovernmental and civil society action to establish criteria and indicators of SFM and develop independent systems for assessing the extent to which the agreed standards are being achieved. Having already considered the first of these two processes in Section 1.2, we shall focus here on the latter two, before concluding Section 1 by setting out the thematic elements of sustainable forest management that the FAO uses in its regular assessments of the global forest estate.

International trade agreements and forest principles

In Section 1.2, we noted that the idea of sustainable development has a long history, spanning at least the last three decades. Indeed, environmental concerns have been on the international agenda from the time of the UN Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment in 1972 that led to the establishment of the UN Environment Programme. It was in the early 1980s, however, that three factors came together to trigger major concerns about the world’s forests.

• The FAO’s 1980 analysis of the world’s forest resources, showing alarming deforestation in the tropics, sparked what was an already growing concern about the fate of tropical forests.

• Numerous independent reports depicting catastrophic loss of fuelwood supplies in much of the drier tropics.

• Although already noted at Stockholm in 1972, there was increasing evidence of significant forest dieback in Europe and North America, due to air pollution and, in particular, acid deposition from coal-fired power stations.

Frequent news coverage of events related to these three factors stirred the interest of environmental NGOs, whose campaigns quickly gained public support, raising the pressure for political action.

Amongst the responses to the concern about deforestation in the tropics, was the establishment of the International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA) in 1983 and later, in 1986 of the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO). Although in many ways similar to other international trade agreements, the ITTA differed in one key respect. Clause (h) of Article 1 of the original 1983 agreement stated:

‘(h) To encourage the development of national policies aimed at sustainable utilization and conservation of tropical forests and their genetic resources, and maintaining the ecological balance in the regions concerned.’

Source: ITTA (1983) Clause (h) of Article 1.


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No other trade agreement at the time incorporated a specific commitment to sustainability and to conservation in ecological terms. This was a big step forward as an agreement. However, the same clause was conspicuous by its absence from the successor agreement (ITTA 1994) that came into force in 1996, and while the most recent agreement (ITTA 2006) suggests a much stronger commitment to both social and environmental issues, the ITTO and ITTAs have come in for much criticism from environmental NGOs.

In 1984/1985 the World Resources Institute, together with the World Bank and the UN Development Program published their report ‘Tropical Forests: A Call for Action’ which cited numerous case studies, reported on forestry investment profiles, and set out a plan for action. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (the UN agency charged with responsibility for forestry) responded quickly to the report and in early 1985 tabled what was known initially as the Tropical Forest Action Plan (TFAP). The Plan brought together governments, international agencies, and representatives of NGOs and set out to assess the state of tropical deforestation and forest management generally, and to establish a co-ordinated plan of action. The original plan had five components (forestry and land use, forestry-based industrial development, fuelwood and energy, conservation of tropical forest ecosystems, and institutions) and aimed to promote international donor co-ordination in the development of National Forestry Action Plans (NFAPs). The Plan has met with mixed success, however, and whilst many NFAPs were established in tropical countries, the TFAP itself is increasingly being overtaken by other institutions and avenues of funding.

We have already mentioned the 1987 WCED Report and the concept of ‘sustainable development’ and noted that many people see SFM as forestry’s contribution to this wider policy objective. Much more important in terms of the institutionalisation of SFM, however, was the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. At the end of Section 1.2, we mentioned the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its promotion of ecosystems approaches to natural resource management. The CBD was one of the agreements that came out of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) or ‘Earth Summit’ as it has become known. Of more direct concern for us however, was Chapter 11 of Agenda 21, which addressed the subject of ‘Combating Deforestation’, and the rather long-windedly named: non-legally binding authoritative statement of principles for a global consensus on the management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests (UNCED 1992). Thankfully, these are usually referred to much more simply as the UN Statement of Forest Principles and it is worth reproducing the key element in relation to SFM here. Principle 2b states the following:

‘Forest resources and forest lands should be substantially managed to meet the social, economic, ecological, cultural and spiritual needs of present and future generations. These needs are for forest products and services such as wood and wood products, water, food, medicine, fodder, fuel, shelter, employment, recreation, habitats for wildlife, landscape diversity, carbon sinks and reservoirs, and for other forest products. Appropriate measures should be taken to protect forests against harmful effects of pollution, including air-borne pollution, fires, pests and diseases, in order to maintain their full multiple value’.

Source: UNCED (1992)


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Establishing SFM criteria and indicators

Immediately following Rio, work began on developing ways for countries or major forestry projects to assess whether they were adhering to the principles of sustainable management and consensus soon grew around what have subsequently become known as Criteria and Indicators (C&I) processes. The relationship between principles, criteria, and indicators is illustrated in 1.3.1.

1.3.1 Principles, criteria and indicators

Principles are general in scope. They outline the philosophy upon which the initiative or forest management standard is based. Examples of some principles are:

Principle 1: Forest management shall conserve water resources and soils.

Principle 2: The welfare of employees shall be ensured.

Criteria set out the key elements or dimensions that define and clarify each principle. For each principle there will be one or more criteria, which correspond to identified elements against which forest management may be assessed. Examples of criteria relating to Principle 1 (above):

Criterion 1.1 Conservation or maintenance of water supplies.

Criterion 1.2 Conservation of soils.

Indicators are quantitative or qualitative variants which can be measured or described and which can be used to report on the status or trend of a criterion over time. For each criterion, there may be one or more indicators. Usually indicators are specific to a particular region or forest. Examples of indicators relating to Criterion 1.1 (above):

Indicator 1.1 Type and severity of soil erosion.

Indicator 1.2 Extent and distribution of protection areas.

Source: Higman et al (2005) p. 19.

Given the following principle of sustainable forest management, suggest two criteria that might be adopted to define and clarify the principle, and two indicators that might be used to report on the status or trend of each criterion over time.

Principle: ‘The overall area of forest is not declining’.

Answer

Criteria and indicators could include any of the following:

C1 Forest areas have clearly marked boundaries

Indicators:

C.1.1. There is a map showing the boundaries of the forest areas

C.1.2. The boundaries of forest areas are clearly marked on the ground

C2. Effective action is taken by forest managers to monitor the forest and protect it against illegal cutting of trees and damage by wildfires

Indicators:

C.2.1. There are written procedures for issuing cutting licences

C.2.2. There is a written fire plan

C.2.3. Records are maintained of all cutting licences issued


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C.2.4. All staff are aware of what do in the event of a fire

C.3. The forest manager promotes the participation of local people in protecting the forest

Indicators:

C.3.1. There is an effective system for interesting local people in protecting the forest against illegal cutting and wildfires.

C.3.2. Educational programmes are implemented to inform local people about what to do in the event of encountering evidence of illegal cutting or wildfire

Although it was recognised that Criteria and Indicators needed an international consensus, it was also clear that regional variations were important. This led to a number of different C&I processes being initiated among groups of countries sharing similar forest types, with the job of harmonising the processes falling to the UN FAO. There are currently nine ongoing processes (see the map in 1.3.2) incorporating a total of approximately 150 countries. Most of the countries that are not participating are small island states with very small areas of forest, although there are notable exceptions such as Vietnam and Paraguay.

1.3.2 International criteria and indicator processes

Dry Zone Africa ProcessPan-‐European Forest ProcessMontreal ProcessTarapoto ProposalNear East ProcessLepatorique Process of Central AmericaAfrican Timber Organization InitiativeRegional Initiative for Forests in AsiaITTO

Dry Zone Africa ProcessPan-‐European Forest ProcessMontreal ProcessTarapoto ProposalNear East ProcessLepatorique Process of Central AmericaAfrican Timber Organization InitiativeRegional Initiative for Forests in AsiaITTO

Source: FAO (2010a)

In parallel with C&I processes has been the development of systems whereby individual forests are vetted and then certified as being managed in ways that reach ‘acceptable’ standards of environmental, social, and economic performance. The certification process is a detailed and exhaustive appraisal of forest management planning and operational practice. It is undertaken by independent teams of auditors whose work is itself independently evaluated. There is a system for annual reviews of compliance and addressing any non-compliances through appropriate corrective actions. The lead SFM certification standards agency is the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which verifies national SFM standards against its own principles of forest stewardship and accredits certification bodies to audit forests and issue certificates on its behalf.


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We shall not be delving any deeper into the process of certification in this unit, but we cannot leave the subject without a few words about some of the issues that certification has raised. It has clearly added a new layer of bureaucracy to forest management operations, in addition to the need to comply with national and international laws and regulations, and, of course, the certification process has to be paid for. Realistically this has meant an extra cost to be met by the forest’s owners or managers. In return, owners and managers can expect greater market penetration or less risk of market exclusion for their products. There is no legal requirement for certification but once a forest becomes certified, products from it can be marketed with the FSC or other recognised logos and thus assurance provided to the buyer that the product has come from a sustainably managed forest. In this way the products should be more attractive to buy. Demonstrating benefits from certification has been elusive, but it now seems certain, following rather hesitant beginnings that certification is here to stay.

Progress towards sustainable forest management

The momentum for international action on forests that was generated by the 1992 ‘Forest Principles’ and Chapter 11 of Agenda 21 led, as we have already seen, to the initiation of various regional Criteria and Indicators processes. Building on these processes, 1995 saw the establishment, under the auspices of the UNCED, of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF). The objective of the IPF was to conduct negotiations towards an agreement that would develop the 1992 Forest Principles into international policy for the sustainable development of all types of forests. In 1997 the IPF became the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests and, in 2000, the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF).

At its sixth session, in 2006, the Forum established the Global Objectives on Forests. These seek to:

(1) Reverse the loss of forest cover worldwide through sustainable forest management (SFM).

(2) Enhance forest-based economic, social, and environmental benefits, including by improving the livelihoods of forest-dependent people.

(3) Increase significantly the area of sustainably managed forests and the proportion of forest products derived from them.

(4) Reverse the decline in official development assistance for sustainable forest management and mobilise significantly-increased new and additional financial resources from all sources for the implementation of sustainable forest management.

On 28 April 2007, the ‘Non-Legally Binding Instrument on All Types of Forests’ was agreed and adopted by the UN General Assembly (Resolution 62/98) on 17 December 2007. ‘The purpose of this instrument is:

(a) To strengthen political commitment and action at all levels to implement effectively sustainable management of all types of forests and to achieve the shared global objectives on forests;

(b) To enhance the contribution of forests to the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals, in particular with respect to poverty eradication and environmental sustainability;


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(c) To provide a framework for national action and international co-operation;’

(UNFF 2007)

In the process of working towards C&I and the Forests Instrument, seven thematic elements (see 1.3.3) have been identified as a framework for monitoring progress towards sustainable forest management.

1.3.3 Thematic elements of sustainable forest management

‘1. Extent of forest resources. This theme reflects the importance of adequate forest cover and stocking, including trees outside forests, to support the social, economic and environmental dimensions of forestry; to reduce deforestation; and to restore and rehabilitate degraded forest landscapes. The existence and extent of specific forest types are important as a basis for conservation efforts. The theme also includes the important function of forests and trees outside forests to store carbon and thereby contribute to moderating the global climate.

2. Biological diversity. This theme concerns the conservation and management of biological diversity at ecosystem (landscape), species and genetic levels. Such conservation, including the protection of areas with fragile ecosystems, ensures that diversity of life is maintained, and provides opportunities to develop new products in the future, including medicines. Genetic improvement is also a means of increasing forest productivity, for example to ensure high wood production levels in intensively managed forests.

3. Forest health and vitality. Forests need to be managed so that the risks and impacts of unwanted disturbances are minimised, including wildfires, airborne pollution, storm felling, invasive species, pests and diseases. Such disturbances may have an impact on the social and economic, as well as environmental, dimensions of forestry.

4. Productive functions of forest resources. Forests and trees outside forests provide a wide range of wood and non-wood forest products. This theme reflects the importance of maintaining an ample and valuable supply of primary forest products while ensuring that production and harvesting are sustainable and do not compromise the management options of future generations.

5. Protective functions of forest resources. Forests and trees outside forests contribute to moderating soil, hydrological and aquatic systems, maintaining clean water (including healthy fish populations) and reducing the risks and impacts of floods, avalanches, erosion and drought. Protective functions of forest resources also contribute to ecosystem conservation efforts and provide benefits to agriculture and rural livelihoods.

6. Socio-‐economic functions. Forest resources contribute to the overall economy in many ways such as through employment, values generated through processing and marketing of forest products, and energy, trade and investment in the forest sector. They also host and protect sites and landscapes of high cultural, spiritual or recreational value. This theme thus includes aspects of land tenure, indigenous and community management systems, and traditional knowledge.

7. Legal, policy and institutional framework. Legal, policy and institutional arrangements — including participatory decision-making, governance and law enforcement, and monitoring and assessment of progress — are necessary to support the above six themes. This theme also encompasses broader societal aspects, including fair and equitable use of forest resources, scientific research and education, infrastructure arrangements to support the forest sector, transfer of technology, capacity-building, and public information and communication.’

Source: FAO (2007) p. 3.

At the global level the UN agency tasked with monitoring the world’s forest resources is the Forestry Department of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Since


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2005, these thematic elements have been used to organise the Global Forest Resource Assessments (FRAs) that are published every five years, having been complied from information submitted to the FAO in individual country reports. The FAO also produces a biennial ‘State of the World’s Forests’ (SOFO) Report, the 2007 edition of which used the seven elements as its framework for discussing international ‘progress towards sustainable forest management’. All data sources and statistical analyses are of course open to debate and the information presented in these FAO publications has received its fair share of criticism. However, the most recent FRAs and the SOFO Reports provide the most comprehensive and detailed global forestry information available and will be key sources for our discussion of the ‘Global Forest Estate’ and ‘Supply and Trade of Forest Products and Services’ in Section 2 of this unit.


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Section 1 Self Assessment Questions

uestion 1

When and where was scientific forestry developed and what was its main objective?

uestion 2

Allocate the following phrases to the individual cells in the matrix below to distinguish between sustained yield and sustainable forest management.

(a) … adaptive management — but within defined limits

(b) … are based on long-standing technocratic traditions and legal mandates, focused on production

(c) … are those of classic silviculture

(d) … broadly focused

(e) … expert knowledge, supplemented with broader stakeholder inputs

(f) … include codes of forestry practices, criteria and indicators etc

(g) … incorporate broader range of environmental and social objectives

(h) … is on balancing conservation, production and use of forest goods and services

(i) … is on sustainable commodity production

(j) … narrowly focused

(k) … predictability and stability

(l) … scientific and technological knowledge

Criteria for comparison Sustained yield forestry Sustainable forest management

Resource management objectives…

Knowledge is based on…

Sectoral approach is…

Assumes…

Associated tools…

Primary concern…

uestion 3

Identify the three sets of interrelated processes that have been central to the institutionalisation of SFM over the past half century.

Q

Q

Q


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2.0 THE GLOBAL FOREST ESTATE AND THE SUPPLY AND TRADE

OF FOREST PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

Section Overview For many people the word ‘forest’ conjures up images of dense stands of trees, shrubs, and climbers, from within which the sky is barely visible. In Section 2, we will develop our understanding of forests by introducing the definition that underlies the FAO’s data on the global extent of forest cover and how this has been changing over time. As well as their general definition of ‘forest’, we will also review three main classificatory schemes for forests.

Having established more precisely what is meant by the term forest, we investigate and explain recent trends in global forest cover, distinguishing major areas of forest loss and expansion. This exercise will make clear just how important it is to clarify and understand the implications of the different ways in which ‘forest’ is defined and categorised and the sources of data and information that support claims concerning the state of the world’s forests.

In the final part of Section 2 we will review some of the FAO’s data on global supply and trade of forest products and services, and draw the unit to a close by taking a look at the broad range of products and services that are derived from the forests of the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve in Mexico, noting that potential income from ecosystem services can far exceed the value of timber and NTFPs.

Section Learning Outcomes By the end of this section students should be able to:

• explain the importance of definitions of ‘forest’ and ‘forest cover change’ and state the main categories of forest according to degree of human influence, forest function and biogeography

• discuss the global geography of forest loss and expansion, including the relationship between ultimate drivers and proximate causes of deforestation

2.1 Defining forests

What is a forest?

Before beginning to examine the composition and distribution of the global forest estate, we need to define more precisely what we mean when we talk of ‘forests’.

In 50 words or fewer write down your own definition of ‘forest’.

The origins of the word link back to the Latin ‘foris’ meaning ‘outside’, so that rather than an area of dense tree cover, the term originally referred to any land ‘outside of cultivation’ and thus, by default, the property of the monarch. In medieval France


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and Britain royal hunting forests were large areas of land composed of mosaics of woods, heaths, and grassland, referred to by the phrase ‘forestem silvam’: ‘the outside woods’. If you recall our discussion of the origins of forest management at the beginning of Section 1, you may remember that John Evelyn’s (1622) ‘discourse of forest trees and the production of timber’, was entitled ‘Silva’, which is the root of the term ‘silviculture’: the technical term for the art and science of establishing forests and producing forest products and services.

The purpose of this short lesson in etymology, is to introduce the idea that there is considerable disagreement over official definitions and what is being referred to when the term ‘forest’ is employed.

Why do you imagine that there is such disagreement over the definition of forests?

Answer.

In Section 1 it became evident that the last 50 years have seen a broadening of interest in forests from a range of different groups and individuals. Forests are no longer seen predominantly as sources of wood, they also supply numerous other products as well as regulating, cultural, and support services. Our interests in forests will have implications for how we would wish to define them. Individuals and groups whose interests revolve around biodiversity are keen to preserve what remains of the world’s forest cover in conditions as close as possible to those that prevailed before human impacts became so pervasive. Commercial forestry companies, on the other hand, with interests in efficient timber production, have sought to promote uniformity in forest stands, through the application of ‘scientific forestry’.

It should also be clear that if we are trying to control deforestation or establish and implement forest certification systems, the degree of canopy cover and the height of trees, as well as the origin (semi-natural or planted) of the forest, are likely to be important issues.

Clearly any assessment of the global forest estate will require close definition not only of what is meant by the term ‘forest’ but also a range of other relevant concepts. 2.2.1 provides a list of the main terms defined by the FAO in order to achieve consistency among the 229 countries and territories that submitted reports in preparation for the 2005 FRA and the 233 that contributed to the 2010 Assessment. It also reproduces the FAO’s definitions of ‘forests’ and ‘other wooded lands’.


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2.1.1 Key terms defined by FAO for FRA reporting purposes

BIOMASS CARBON STOCK

DESIGNATED FUNCTIONS (of forest and other wooded land)

DISTURBANCES (affecting forest health and vitality)

EMPLOYMENT ENDANGERED SPECIES

FOREST OTHER WOODED LAND

FOREST CHARACTERISTCS GROWING STOCK

LAND AREA OWNERSHIP

WOOD AND NON-WOOD FOREST PRODUCTS (NWFP)

VALUE OF WOOD and NWFP REMOVAL

Forest: Land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 5 m and canopy cover of more than 10%, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ. It does not include land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban land use.

Other wooded land

Land not classified as Forest, spanning more than 0.5 hectares; with trees higher than 5 m and a canopy cover of 5—10%, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ; or with a combined cover of shrubs, bushes, and trees above 10%. It does not include land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban land use.

Source: derived from FAO (2006) pp. 169—175.

Bearing in mind your own short definition, does the FAO’s definition of ‘forest’ surprise you?

The idea that any area of land greater than 0.5 ha, with trees above 5 m and a canopy cover of more than 10% can be recorded as ‘forest’ surprises many people. The matrices in 2.1.2 provide geometric representation of (a) 11% and (b) 84% canopy cover, both of which would be recorded as forest in the Global Forest Resource assessments. We make this comparison here to underline that fact that forests are more than just trees! Trees may be the most obvious elements, but forests are very complex ecosystems, composed of a great many different species of plants, animals, and micro-organisms. Unlike maximum sustained yield of timber, the regulating, cultural, and supporting services that forests provide to society do not rely solely on trees.


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2.1.2 Canopy cover of 11% and 84% count equally in FAO estimations of total forest cover

(a) 11% canopy cover (b) 84% canopy cover

Source: unit author

Types of forest

There are numerous ways in which forests can be classified and these classifications are also subject to continuing debate. Three of the most common and generic levels of classification relate to:

(1) forest characteristics in terms of human intervention

(2) their designated functions

(3) biogeography

The country reports that contribute to the FAO’s five-yearly Forest Resource Assessments provide details about how each nation’s total forest estate is divided up according to its characteristics and designated functions and these are both defined by the FAO in order to promote consistency in reporting (see 2.1.3).

2.1.3 Forest characteristic and functions — FRA 2010

Characteristics

Primary forest: naturally regenerated forests of native species, where there are no clearly visible indications of human activities and the ecological processes are not significantly disturbed.

Other naturally regenerated forest: naturally regenerated forests where there are clearly visible indications of human activities (with an introduced species sub-category).

Planted forests: forests predominantly composed of trees established through planting and/or deliberate seeding (with an introduced species sub-category).


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Functions

Production: supply of wood and non-wood forest products

Protection: of soil and water resources

Conservation of biodiversity: including but not restricted to protected areas

Social services: recreation, tourism, education, spiritual and religious

Multiple use: any combination of the above functions

Unknown: forests and other wooded lands that have not been designated to a function

Source: derived from FAO (2006) and FAO (2010b)

Access the Country Report for the country where you are currently living or working (it will be available to download from FRA (2010)). Find the country’s data for Table T3 (Primary designated function) and calculate the percentages of the national forest devoted to each primary function.

If we take the example of India, the most recent data available are for 2005 (see the table in 2.1.4) and the calculations proceed as follows:

Production (17 219/67 709)×100 = 25%

Protection (10 590/67 709)×100 = 16%

Conservation (19 551/67 709)×100 = 29%

Multiple use (20 349/67 709)×100 = 30%

2.1.4 Primary functions of Indian forests 1990, 2000, and 2005

Source: India Country Report p. 18, from FRA (2010)

Biogeographers conventionally divide the world into eight ‘biogeographical realms’ and these are further subdivided into biomes (see 2.1.5). The majority of the world’s forests fall into one of three major forest biomes: boreal, temperate, and tropical. In the far north of the North American and Eurasian landmasses we find the boreal forest biome, also know as ‘Taiga’: the world’s largest terrestrial biome. Further south in the northern hemisphere and in the south of the southern hemisphere we find the temperate forests. While the boreal forest is dominated by coniferous species such as pine and spruce, the temperate forests may be either


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coniferous or broadleaved, or a mixture of both. Tropical forest biomes are also subdivided according to whether they are composed of coniferous or broadleaved species, with broadleaved tropical and subtropical forests, further classified into moist and dry forests.

In addition to the three main forest biomes, there are two further categories. Mediterranean forests are a sub-category of temperate forest biomes. As well as being located around the Mediterranean basin, they can also be found in the south of Australia, the southern tip of the Western Cape of South Africa, California, and central Chile. Finally, there are the highly specialised Mangrove forests that are adapted to life in the tidal zones along the coasts and estuaries of much of the tropics.

2.1.5 Biogeographical realms and terrestrial biomes

Source: Olsen et al (2001) p. 934.


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2.1.6 Forest biomes

A slide show of photographs of representative examples of different forest biomes shown in 2.1.6 is available on the study CD.

Source: unit author

Having defined more precisely the range of ecosystem structures, functions and biogeographical designations that are encompassed by the term ‘forest’, we can now go on to undertake a brief survey of the global forest estate.

2.2 The global forest estate The 2010 FRA estimates that, taken as a whole, forests cover 31% of the terrestrial land surface: just over 40 million km2. These global data incorporate a range of very different regional and national statistics. On a regional basis, at just 4%, Western and Central Asia has the lowest proportion of total land area covered by forests. On a national basis, Egypt and Iceland both have less than 1% forest cover, but for very different reasons! The most wooded region of the world is South America, with 47.7% of its total land area covered by forests.

Study the map in 2.2.1. Name one country in Africa, one in Europe and one in South America, which has more than 70% forest cover.

Answer.

Africa: Guinea-Bissau and Gabon, Europe: Finland and South America: Guyana, French Guiana and Suriname.


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2.2.1 Forests as a percentage of total land area by country 2010

Source: FAO (2010b) p. 3.

In the 2005 FRA, Suriname in South America was the world’s most forested nation with almost 95% of its land area covered by 14.8 million hectares of tropical forest. With a total human population of 443 000, Suriname is thus blessed with over 33 ha of forest per capita. This compares very favourably with the global average. Given a total population close to 7 billion (thousand million) people, that works out at just over half a hectare (0.57) per person.

For the country where you are currently living or working, obtain data from the FAO’s most recent FRA or from your local forest authority and calculate the area of forest land available per person. How does the figure where you work or live compare with the global figure of 0.57 ha per person? Is this higher or lower than you imagined it would be?


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Changes in the global forest area over time

It is estimated that forests once covered some 75 million km2, or more than half of the total global land area (Forestry Commission 2009). Today, the world’s forests are far less extensive (see the map in 2.2.2), with only 36% of the remaining cover considered to be primary forest.

2.2.2 Global distribution of original and remaining forests

Source: UNEP-WCMC (2010)

The 2010 FRA, which derived its data by collating individual reports from 233 countries and areas, puts the figure at just over 40 million km2 (FAO 2010b p. 3). A study carried out by Hansen et al (2010), however, put the figure at 32.7 million km2 in 2000, dropping to 31.5 million km2 in 2005. It was mentioned earlier that definitions may vary due to the different interests that people have in forests and it should be obvious that different definitions of what counts as forest, will automatically lead to the generation of divergent data. The purpose of Hansen et al’s research was to generate data that would enable them to make comparisons of forest cover and global forest cover loss (GFCL) among biomes, continents, and nations. While these researchers are involved with FAO forest research, they note a number of shortcomings with the FRA data, which compromise their value in terms of accurately assessing GFCL (see 2.2.3).

2.2.3 Limitations of FRA data for analyses of forest cover change

(1) Methods used to quantify forest change are not consistent among all reporting countries and areas.

(2) The definition of ‘forest’ is based on land use not land cover and the definition of land use obscures the biophysical reality of tree cover.

(3) Forest area changes are only reported as changes in net values.

(4) The definition of ‘forest’ in successive reports has changed.

Source: Hansen et al (2010) p. 2.


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Hansen et al (2010) employed a globally consistent satellite imagery methodology in which forest cover is defined as land with >= 25 % canopy closure of trees >= 5 m in height. Their data show global forest cover being lost at a rate of 20 million ha yr-1 between 2000 and 2005, which is considerably more than the 13 million ha reported in the 2005 FRA. The FRA goes on to claim that this rate is further ameliorated by the establishment of new forest plantations.

What factor would significantly limit the recognition of new plantations under the Hansen et al (2010) methodology?

Answer.

For plantations to register using the Hansen methodology, they would have to achieve 25% canopy closure and a height of >= 5 m.

The Hansen et al (2010) data show further discrepancies with the FAO FRA statistics in terms of where the most significant deforestation is occurring and its main causes. Conventional wisdom, based on the most recent FRAs, suggests that deforestation is most problematic in the tropics, in countries such as Brazil and Indonesia, while the areas of boreal and temperate forest in countries such as Canada and the USA are reported to be stable or even expanding (see the map in 2.2.4).

2.2.4 Global forest cover, losses and gains

Source: SCBD (2009) p. 10.

While Hansen et al (2010) do not dispute that Brazil and Indonesia experienced significant rates of forest loss, their satellite data show that 53% of 2000–2005 GFCL occurred in the boreal and temperate forest biomes and that the USA is the country which lost the largest proportion (6% or 120 000 km2) of its 2000 forest cover in the five years to 2005. Some of the differences between the FAO and Hansen et al


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(2010) data are quite staggering. Canada, for example, recorded no change whatsoever in net forest area in its country report for the 2005 FRA. At 160 000 km2, however, the Hansen study places Canada second only to Brazil (165 000) in terms of standing forest loss over the 2000–2005 reporting period (Hansen et al 2010 pp. 3–4). The key differences between the FAO and Hansen et al data with respect to forests in the Americas are summarised in the table in 2.2.5.

2.2.5 Comparison of key differences between reported and observed forest losses 2000—2005

Parameter FRA 2005 Hansen et al 2010

Global forest area 2000 3.95 billion ha 3.27 billion ha

Net global loss, 2000—2005 650 000 km2 1 001 000 km2

Annual loss rate 0.18% (0.52% for primary forest) 0.6%

Loss, S. America, 2000—2005 21.5 M ha 22.8 M ha

Loss, N. America, 2000—2005 1.75 M ha 29.5 M ha

Source: unit author

In comparison with the FAO’s country-reported, land use designation data, which show deforestation concentrated in the tropics and net gains in forest area for North America, Europe, and China, the Hansen et al (2010) satellite imagery sample survey suggests net forest losses across all biomes, continents, and heavily forested nations (see figure in 2.2.6).

2.2.6 Estimated global forest cover loss by biome, continent, and country

Source: Hansen et al (2010) p. 3.


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These inconsistencies certainly provide a great deal of scope for disagreements based on diverging interests, even if they are primarily due to the distinction between land use designations and actual land cover on the ground. Taking the example of Canada, however, we should note that it has a very important timber industry, producing more than 200 000 000 m3 of wood each year (FAO 2006). In the slow-growing boreal forest biome, it can take more than 20 years to achieve 5 m height growth, so forest that was clear cut for timber production between 2000 and 2005 would have registered as deforestation in the Hansen study, while for the Canadian Forest Service, harvested land that has been restocked or is in the process of regenerating naturally would remain registered as part of the national forest estate. The same is true of areas affected by wildfires (60% of total GFCL in the boreal biome) and pine beetle infestations. This then brings us on to the drivers of changes in the global forest area.

Drivers of deforestation and reafforestation.

As Sayer (2005) points out, uncovering the realities of what is happening in the world’s forests can be quite a challenge, given the persistent nature of some of the myths surrounding them. The matter is further complicated by the fact that deforestation and reafforestation are both occurring and sometimes in the very same place! If this sounds a little strange, it is not without reason. It is said in order to underline a conclusion that we might draw from our discussion in this section so far: Recorded rates of deforestation and reafforestation will depend on our definitions of ‘forest’ and the methodologies we adopt for measuring forest areas.

Geist and Lambin (2005) note that while tropical deforestation is generally accepted as one of the primary causes of global environmental change, the question of what drives deforestation remains open to debate. Here again, a wide range of arguments has been put forward, most of which fall into one of ‘two major, mutually exclusive – and still unsatisfactory – explanations [... :] single factor causation and irreducible complexity’ (Geist and Lambin 2005 p. 59). In an attempt to clarify the situation, Geist and Lambin analysed the findings of 152 case studies of tropical deforestation.

The key to Geist and Lambin’s research is to distinguish between the ultimate driving forces (underlying fundamental social processes) and proximate causes (immediate human actions) of tropical deforestation. Their analysis revealed five broad clusters of driving forces (demographic, economic, technological, policy/institutional, and cultural) and three broad proximate causes (infrastructure extension, agricultural expansion and wood extraction). In addition, the ways in which the driving forces translate into proximate causes was influenced by three other factors: pre-disposing environmental factors; biophysical drivers; and social trigger events (see the figure in 2.2.7). The authors conclude that previous studies tend to have overemphasised population growth and shifting cultivation as primary factors in deforestation and have given too little weight to infrastructure extension, timber extraction, and permanent cultivation driven by economic opportunities and policy environments.


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2.2.7 Driving forces and proximate causes of tropical deforestation

Source: adapted from Geist and Lambin (2005) p. 61.

Complete deforestation is often preceded by forest degradation. Here again our interests in and definitions of ‘forest’ will colour our views of whether any particular change in species, age and height structures count as degradation or improvement. You’ll remember that within the scientific forestry paradigm, maximising sustainable yield of timber was achieved by promoting uniformity. Today, however, sustainable forest management is more likely to seek to optimise timber production and try to enhance or at least maintain diversity. Regardless of how we define forest degradation, it will almost certainly occur for the same reasons that drive deforestation: ultimately because the benefits derived from degrading the forest or allowing it to become degraded, outweigh the benefits of managing it to ensure a sustainable flow of products and services over time.

Like deforestation and forest degradation, afforestation, reafforestation, and forest restoration occur in response to drivers. Like most things that are important to our well-being, we don’t tend to recognise the benefits that forests bestow until those benefits, be they products or services, are in short supply. We might think back once again to the words of the first Chief of the US Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot (see 1.2.1), when he noted that, in the 1890s, wasting timber was seen as a virtue rather than a crime! Similar attitudes persist in frontier societies where a great premium is put on clearing forests for agricultural land. Yet as we begin to realise that forests

Driving forces

Proximate causes

Infrastructure extension•Transport (roads, railroads, etc.)•Markets (public and private, e.g. sawmills)•Settlements (rural and urban)•Public Service (water lines, electrical grids, sanitation, etc.)•Private company (hydropower, mining, oil exploration)

Agricultural expansion•Permanent Cultivation (large-scale vs. smallholder, subsistence vs. commercial)•Shifting Cultivation (slash and burn vs. traditional swidden)•Cattle Ranching (large-scale vs. smallholder)•Colonization (in CL transmigration and resettlement projects)

Wood extraction•Commercial(State-run, private, growthcoalition, etc.)•Fuelwood (mainly domestic usage)•Charcoal production (domestic and industrial uses)

Demographic factors•Natural Increment (fertility, mortality)•Migration (in/out migration)•Population Density•Population Distribution•Life Cycle Features

Economic factors•Market Growth and Commercialization•Economic Structures•Urbanization and Industrialization•Special Variables (e.g. price increases, comparative cost advantages)

Technological factors•Agro-technical Change (e.g. in/extensif ication)•Applications in the wood sector•(e.g. mainly wastage)•Agricultural production factors

Policy and Institutional factors•Formal Policies (e.g. on economic development, credits)•Policy Climate (e.g. corruption, mismanagement)•Property Rights (e.g. land races, titling)

Cultural factors•Public Attitudes, Values and Beliefs (e.g. unconcern about forest, frontier mentality)•Individual and Household Behaviour (e.g. unconcern about forests, rent-seeking, imitation)

Other Influential Factors•Pre-disposing environmental factors (land characteristics, e.g. soil quality, topography, forest fragmentation, etc.)•Biophysical drivers (triggers, e.g. f ires, droughts, f loods, pests)•Social Trigger Events (e.g. war, revolution, social disorder, abrupt displacements, economic shocks, abrupt policy shifts)


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represent more than just storehouses of timber and spaces to be cleared for development, new values emerge, prompting different behaviour on the part of enlightened individuals, companies, and states, resulting in the development of markets or the formulation and promulgation of policies that lead to the restoration of supplies of non-timber products and forest services and the expansion of forest area. In the final part of Section 2, we shall turn our attention to the numerous products and services that forests supply, but before we do, we need briefly to consider where in the world and at what rates forests are expanding.

Forest cover has been expanding in the UK since the beginning of the 20th century. When Sir William Schlich became the first Director of the Oxford Forestry Institute in 1905, forest cover in Britain was at an all time low of just 5%. Despite Schlich’s prompting, nothing much changed until Britain’s dependence on foreign imports was forcefully underlined by events during the First World War (1914–1918), when supplies of timber from the British Empire were interrupted by German submarines. In July 1916 the British Government established the Acland Committee to investigate and report on the best way to develop domestic timber production. The Committee reported in 1918, recommending the creation of a national Forestry Commission as the most effective way of co-ordinating a reafforestation plan to meet timber needs into the future.

The Commission was created in September 1919 and quickly set about buying land for the establishment of state-owned timber plantations and promoting private sector activity through the provision of grant funding and special taxation arrangements for forestry. The idea that the nation should build a strategic reserve of timber as a precaution against the disruption of imported supplies remained the central raison d’être of the Forestry Commission well into the second half of the 20th century, until increasing affluence and mobility led to the establishment of new priorities from the late 1970s (see Section 1.2). From a low of just 5% land cover at the beginning of the 20th century, forests have expanded to occupy about 12% of the total national land area, 36% of which is state owned with the remainder in private hands, including large institutional land owners such as pension funds.

Notwithstanding the note of caution raised by our discussion of Hansen et al’s (2010) concern over the validity of reported land use statistics, the 2010 FRA data suggest that the area of planted forest expanded by more than 5 million ha yr-1 between 2005 and 2010 (FAO 2010b), reaching a total of 264 million ha, about 7% of global forest cover. Net forest area has expanded most significantly in China (see the map in 2.2.8), continuing a trend that was set in the first five years of the 21st century. China’s establishment of forest plantations for the control of soil erosion and the protection of water resources, as well as the production of future timber and non-timber forest product supplies, has transformed Asia from an area experiencing net forest loss into an area of net forest expansion. Between 2000 and 2005 China planted an average of 4 m ha of forest each year. Spain too grew its forest area by almost 300 k ha yr–1, followed closely by Vietnam (241 k ha yr–1). In Europe, Bulgaria, France, Italy, and Portugal also made it into the list of the world’s top ten nations in terms of forest area expansion. In the Americas, Chile and Cuba both had net gains of just over 50 000 ha yr–1 between 2000 and 2005, although they were some way behind the USA, which registered an annual gain of 159 000 ha of land use categorised as forest.


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2.2.8 Net changes in forest area (ha) by country 2005—2010

Source: FAO (2010b) p. 4.

So, having considered the characteristics, extent and dynamics of the global forest estate, we will bring Unit 1 to a close by looking in a little more detail at some of the benefits that we derive from the world’s wooded areas.

2.3 Supply and trade of forest products and services In Section 1 we mentioned briefly the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) and the categorisation of the benefits that society derives from forests into provisioning, cultural, regulating, and supporting ecosystem services (MEA 2005). In terms of the primary designated functions reported by the FAO (2010b), 30% of the total area is production forest. Timber may well be produced from multiple use forests too, and these account for another 24% of the global total. So we can safely say that timber and non-timber forest products are being produced from at least half of the total forest area: somewhere in the region of 1.5 to 2 billion hectares.

The global forest estate contains about 500 billion m3 of standing timber. At the aggregate level, this equates to approximately 125 m3 of standing timber or what is also termed ‘growing stock’ per hectare. Total recorded annual wood removals of 3.4 billion m3 from the 2 billion hectares of production and multiple use forest, lead to a figure of 1.7 m3 ha–1 or 1.4% of standing volume being harvested each year. With a global population of seven billion people this represents 0.5 m3 or, very roughly, half a tonne of wood per person, per year. In most production forests, where annual volume increments range from 2 m3 to 30 m3, this would be considered a highly sustainable rate of harvest. At this level of aggregation however, the numbers are almost meaningless, other than to provide a very approximate idea of wood production.

Why do you think the preceding figures are so dubious?


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Answer.

Much of the use made of the world’s forests is informal and there is also a significant illegal timber harvest. About 50% of the recorded wood volume production is what is known as ‘industrial round wood’: the stems of trees that have been de-branched ready for further processing into timber or wood chips and fibres. Most of the informal production is small diameter building poles and fuel wood, which together with the illegally cut trees go unrecorded. Thus, the actual annual volume production is certainly much higher than the recorded and reported total.

The commercial production of around 1.7 billion m3 of industrial roundwood, wood processing and wood fibre products, contributed approximately US$ 468 billion to the global economy in 2006 (see 2.3.1). While this was up 10% on the 1990 figure, in terms of total global GDP, the forestry sector’s contributions fell from 1.4% to 1% over the same period because of much faster growth in other sectors such as manufacturing and services. The other 50% (1.7 billion m3) of recorded global wood volume production was used domestically as fuelwood or small buildings poles and the like.

2.3.1 Forest industry gross value added by region, 1990 and 2006

Source: FAO (2009) p. 70.

Most of the wood that is extracted from the world’s forests each year is consumed in its country of origin. Together, Europe and North America produce 68% and consume 65% of industrial roundwood. Taken as a whole, high-income countries consume around three-quarters of all industrial roundwood, whereas the majority of fuelwood (80%) is consumed in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

In addition to wood removals other ‘non-wood’ or ‘non-timber’ forest products (often referred to as NWFPs or NTFPs) are also harvested. Perhaps the most commonly harvested of these are bush meat and plants for human consumption and animal fodder, although forests also provide raw material for medicines, aromatic products, dyes, craftwork, and construction as well as ornamental plants, plant exudates and animal hides. The table in 2.3.2 provides data on the weight in tonnes (t) and number of units of a wide range of products harvested in a variety of countries. The countries cited were selected because of the range and quantities of NTFPs they reported on to the FAO. Many countries make no returns, although it is very unlikely


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that their forests are not used by local people for gathering and hunting in some way or another.

2.3.2 NTFP harvesting by selected countries

Source: compiled by unit author from larger FRA 2005 Global Tables, FAO (2006)

The provision of timber and non-timber products is perhaps the easiest to measure of the suite of environmental services from which humanity benefits. It is also possible to quantify some of the regulating services such as the sequestration and storage of atmospheric carbon (see 2.3.3). Other regulating services such as water purification together with the cultural services and underlying, life supporting services are far less simple to measure.

2.3.3 Forest carbon stocks in Russia, USA, and Brazil 2005

Source: compiled by unit author from larger FRA 2005 Global Tables FAO (2006)


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Measuring and paying for ecosystem services: a Mexican case study

We will draw this unit to a close by considering the case of the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve, the world’s largest community-managed natural protected area. The reserve is located in the centre of Mexico, where it occupies some 383 567 ha, or about 32% of the State of Queretaro. Ranging from 300 to 3000 m above mean sea level (amsl). with annual rainfall of 350 to 2000 mm, the Reserve is Mexico’s most biodiverse in terms of ecosystem diversity. The terrestrial ecosystems include examples of:

• Tropical evergreen forest

• Tropical sub-deciduous forest

• Tropical deciduous forest

• Xerophytic scrub

• Oak forest

• Coniferous forest

• Pine-oak forest

• Cloud forest

• Riparian forest

2.3.4 Timber and NTFPs from the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve

Source: Pedraza Ruiz (2010) p. 13.

The land is largely (97%) in private hands and it is home to more than 100 000 people living in some 600 communities. These people extracted timber and NTFPs and cleared the region’s forests for agriculture and ranching for generations before the impacts of their activities began to give rise to concern. In the early 1980s, a


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local couple, Martha Ruiz Corzo and Roberto Pedraza, decided to do something about the situation and set about convincing local citizens to found a grassroots movement to rescue the Sierra Gorda region, before the impacts of unsustainable exploitation became irreversible. In 1984 they founded the Grupo Ecológico Sierra Gorda (Sierra Gorda (no date)), and through hard work, community solidarity, and sheer determination have established systems of sustainable forest management that generate income from a very wide range of ecosystem services.

Key to their success has been the establishment of a broad coalition of supporting organisations from the National Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, through commercial organisations to international charities and individual philanthropists. They have won grant funding for pilot projects and developed significant income streams from ranges of natural and organic products, including soaps, honey, wild preserves, and herbs. Local people produce craftwork and joinery, and a network of eco-lodges brings tourists and income for local forest guides. Annual income in the local communities has increase by more than US$ 500 000 as a result of these new activities.

The people of the Sierra Gorda have also built what is known as the Earth Center (see 2.3.5), where conferences, festivals, and educational events are held. The Center has been constructed from locally harvested timber and has won awards for its eco-friendly design and construction. They have also developed the idea of ‘holistic ranching’, where cattle production is integrated into sustainable forest management and the production of organic meat and dairy products complements other sources of income from the forest.

2.3.5 The Earth Center



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As well as direct commercial activities, the reserve has an active programme of research and conservation, not only in terms of the region’s impressive biodiversity, but also with regard to the regulating environmental services it provides, including carbon sequestration and storage, soil erosion prevention, and water purification and aquifer recharge. The Mexican Forestry Commission (CONAFOR) pays US$ 30 ha–1 for biodiversity and water conservation measures and carbon storage payments of $US 15 per tonne of CO2 equivalent are received through a project jointly funded by the government and a national environmental philanthropist. In a visit to the UK in 2010, Roberto Pedraza Ruiz, whose mother and father had initiated efforts to conserve the region’s natural resources, presented data illustrating the various and significant income streams that are now derived from them (see 2.3.6).

2.3.6 Timber and ecosystem services values in the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve



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Section 2 Self Assessment Questions

uestion 4

What are the three most common ways of defining forests?

uestion 5

Label the four forest biomes identified by the shaded areas on the map below.

uestion 6

What are the limitations of the FAO’s FRA data in terms of assessing global forest land cover changes?

uestion 7

Complete the following matrix of underlying drivers and proximate causes of forest degradation and deforestation.

Ultimate drivers

Proximate causes

Q

Q

Q

Q


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UNIT SUMMARY

We began this unit by exploring the origins and history of forest management, from the early use of fire to clear forests for agriculture, through to the establishment of the Non-Legally Binding Instrument on All Types of Forests (UNFF 2007). We noted how concern to maintain the economic value of forests led to the development of forest mathematics in Germany in the 18th century and subsequently, following experience gained in India, to sustained yield, scientific forestry in the UK and USA.

We learnt that sustained yield forestry sought to maximise sustainable timber yield by minimising diversity, so that all the ingredients for plant growth could be concentrated into the timber crop. While this approach certainly did maximise the sustainable yield of timber, it neglected other important roles of forest in terms of the supply of non-timber forest products and various ecosystem services. As the impacts of rapid industrial development on forests and the wider environment became increasingly clear, so sustained yield forestry was gradually transformed in a more holistic sustainable forest management. In the final part of Section 1, we explored the institutionalisation of SFM in institutions of the market, civil society, and the agencies and policies of national and international forest governance.

In Section 2 we moved to clarify our understanding of the term ‘forest’ itself. However, our discussion only served to clarify the fact that as more and more interests have staked their claims to the world’s forests, so definitions of forest have increasingly been contested. At the same time, however, we recognised that as the lead UN agency on forests, the FAO and its periodic forest resource assessments (FRAs) represents one of the most reliable sources of information on the state of the world’s forests. Therefore, the next part of the Section 2 was concerned with distinguishing among different types of forest according to the degree of human influence, the key functions for which forests are designated, and the major biogeographical forest types or biomes.

With these classifications explained our next task was to examine and account for global trends in forest cover. At this point some of the nuances of official definitions of ‘forest’ came back into the spotlight as we noted the wide discrepancy between recent satellite imagery surveys of global forest cover loss and the FAO FRA data, based on more than 200 reports submitted by independent countries and territories. We learnt that while national reports suggest more than 40 million km2 of the earth’s surface is officially recognised as forest, from the earth’s orbit, only 30 million km2 are visible! Which ever figures we take, however, it is clear that global forest cover loss continues apace.

Unit 1 was brought to a close by reviewing some of the FAO’s data on global supply and trade of forest products and services. Having made some international comparisons of the economic value derived from these goods, we ended with a detailed case study of community management of the forests of the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve in Mexico, noting that the potential income from ecosystem services can far exceed the value of timber and NTFPs.


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UNIT SELF ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

uestion 1

The German quantitative tradition of forest management was based around three core principles. What where these?

uestion 2

SFM looks beyond timber yields to balance a much broader range of forest products and services. How did the MEA (2005) categorise these broader ecosystem services?

uestion 3

What are the UN’s seven thematic elements of SFM?

uestion 4

Use the following values to complete the FAO definition of ‘FOREST’:

0.5, 5, 10

Land spanning more than _______ hectares with trees higher than _______ m and canopy cover of more than _______%, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ. It does not include land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban land use.

uestion 5

Use the following values to complete the subsequent statement about the global forest estate.

3.4, 30, 50, 125

Approximately _______% of the earth’s surface is covered by forest. On average, these forests have _______ m3 of standing timber per hectare. Around _______% of the total forest area is designated as either production or multiple use forest and total global production of wood is reported to be _______ billion m3 per annum.

uestion 6

What are NTFPs?

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KEY TERMS AND CONCEPTS

Boreal forest located in the far north of the North American and Eurasian landmasses, also known as ‘Taiga’, dominated by coniferous species: the world’s largest terrestrial biome

Criteria and Indicators following the Rio Conference (UNCED 1992) a series of processes was established to develop sets of regional criteria and indicators of sustainable forest management that would allow progress towards SFM to be assessed. Criteria and indicators are also used in the process of certifying forests to SFM standards such as that of the Forest Stewardship Council

driving forces underlying fundamental social processes driving deforestation. Can be categorised into demographic, economic, technological, policy/institutional, and cultural

ecosystem services the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment distinguishes among four main groups of ecosystem services: provisioning, cultural, regulating and supporting ecosystem services. These are sometimes also referred to as environmental services and in this unit we also use the phrase ‘forest products and services’

forest biomes biogeographical classification of forest types: boreal (Taiga), temperate, tropical, mangrove, and Mediterranean

FAO Forest Resource Assessments

the FAO’s global Forest Resource Assessments are carried out periodically and are compiled from individual country and area reports. The most recent were in 2000, 2005, and 2010

Global Objectives on Forests

as a result of ongoing negotiations within the UNFF, 2006 saw the establishment of Global Objectives on Forests. These seek to:

(a) reverse the loss of forest cover worldwide through sustainable forest management (SFM)

(b) enhance forest-based economic, social, and environmental benefits, including by improving the livelihoods of forest-dependent people

(c) increase significantly the area of sustainably managed forests and the proportion of forest products derived from them

(d) reverse the decline in official development assistance for sustainable forest management and mobilise significantly-increased new and additional financial resources from all sources for the implementation of sustainable forest management

mangrove forest adapted to tidal zones; found along the coasts and estuaries of much of the tropics


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Mediterranean forest a subtype of the temperate forest biome, located in the Mediterranean basin, Western Cape of South Africa, South America’s central western seaboard, California, and South Australia

Non-Legally Binding Instrument on All Types of Forests

on 28 April 2007, the ‘Non-Legally Binding Instrument on All Types of Forests’ was agreed and adopted by the UN General Assembly (Resolution 62/98) on 17 December 2007. ‘The purpose of this instrument is:

(a) To strengthen political commitment and action at all levels to implement effectively sustainable management of all types of forests and to achieve the shared global objectives on forests;

(b) To enhance the contribution of forests to the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals, in particular with respect to poverty eradication and environmental sustainability;

(c) To provide a framework for national action and international co-operation;’

(UNFF 2007)

planted forest forests predominantly composed of trees established through planting and/or deliberate seeding

primary forest naturally regenerated forests of native species, where there are no clearly visible indications of human activities and the ecological processes are not significantly disturbed

proximate cause direct human actions leading to deforestation: infrastructure extension, agricultural expansion, and wood extraction

scientific forestry that school of forest management that initially developed in Germany during the 18th century and was later established in the UK by William Schlich and the USA by Gifford Pinchot. The main aim is the maximisation of ‘sustainable yield’

sustained or sustainable yield

the goal or objective is to manage a forest in such a way that it can continue to produce a given volume of timber indefinitely. The sustainable yield of a forest can be quoted in m3 ha–1 yr–1 or as total m3 yr–1 for the forest as a whole. More generally, sustainable yield might be quoted as a proportion of mean annual volume increment. A figure of 70% is typically used

Taiga see boreal forest

temperate forest in the mid-latitudes, the forest biome most impacted by human activity. Comprising coniferous, broadleaved, and mixed forest subtypes

Documents

Unit 1: Sustainable Forest Management and the Global Forest Estate€¦ · Unit One: Sustainable Forest Management and the Global Forest Estate Unit Information 2! Unit Overview 2!