Criteria and Indicators form part of a hierarchy of assessment tools. The four levels of this hierarchy are Principles, Criteria, Indicators, and Verifiers. Each level in the hierarchy is defined as follows
Principle: A fundamental truth or law as the basis of reasoning or action. A principle is commonly formulated around a core concept based on societal ethics, values, and tradition as well as on scientific knowledge. Usually principles can be expressed concisely and crisply, for example, sustainable development principle, sustained yield principle, sovereignty principle, polluter pays principle, and a set of forest principles negotiated at the Earth Summit (CSCE Seminar and the “Montreal Process”, 1993). In the context of sustainable forest management, principles are seen as providing the primary framework for managing forests in a sustainable fashion. They provide the justification for criteria, indicators and verifiers. Consider that principles embody human wisdom, where wisdom is defined as: a small increment in knowledge created by a person’s (group’s) deductive ability after attaining a sufficient level of understanding of a knowledge area. Wisdom therefore depends on knowledge.
E.g. “Ecosystem Integrity is maintained or enhanced” or “Human well-being is assured”.
Criterion[5]: A standard that a thing is judged by. In order to be able to monitor the implementation of the principle of sustainability in forestry, it is necessary to define what it truly means in practice. It is essential to define what conditions forest management must fulfil in order to be sustainable. A criterion describes the different sides of sustainability on a conceptual level. A criterion is a distinguishing element which a thing is judged by (Ministerial Conference on the Protection of European Forests and the “Helsinki Process”, 1993). It is a distinguishing element or set of conditions or processes by which a forest characteristic or management measure is judged (Ministerial Conference on the Protection of European Forests and the “Helsinki Process”, Geneva Sept 1994).
A criterion can therefore be seen as a ‘second order’ principle, one that adds meaning and operationability to a principle without itself being a direct measure of performance. Criteria are the intermediate points to which the information provided by indicators can be integrated and where an interpretable assessment crystallises. Principles form the final point of integration. In addition, criteria should be treated as reflections of knowledge. Knowledge is the accumulation of related information over a long period of time. It can be viewed as a large-scale selective combination or union of related pieces of information.
E.g. “Principal functions and processes of the forest ecosystem are maintained” or “Processes that maintain genetic variation are maintained”
Indicator[6] An indicator is any variable or component of the forest ecosystem or the relevant management systems used to infer attributes of the sustainability of the resource and its utilisation. Indicators should convey a ‘single meaningful message’. This ‘single message’ is termed “information”. It represents an aggregate of one or more data elements with certain established relationships. A quantitative or qualitative variable which can be measured or described and which when observed periodically demonstrates trends (Sixth Meeting of the Working Group on Criteria and Indicators for the Conservation and Sustainable Management of Boreal and Temperate Forests, Santiago de Chile Febr.1995 - the “Montreal Process”). A change indicator does not, in itself, tell whether the change is favourable or unfavourable. The indicators have to be judged on the scale of acceptable standards of performance which may vary widely from region to region and from time to time. By repeatedly measuring the fulfilment of the criteria, we can evaluate whether forest management is moving towards or away from sustainability (Ministerial Conference on the Protection of European Forests and the “Helsinki Process”, 1993).
E.g. “Directional change in allele or genotype frequencies”
Verifier: Data or information that enhances the specificity or the ease of assessment of an indicator. At the fourth level of specificity, verifiers provide specific details that would indicate or reflect a desired condition of an indicator. They add meaning, precision and usually also site-specificity to an indicator. They may define the limits of a hypothetical zone from which recovery can still safely take place (performance threshold/target). On the other hand, they may also be defined as procedures needed to determine satisfaction of the conditions postulated in the indicator concerned (means of verification).
E.g. “Number of alleles”
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[4] Adapted from Prabhu et
al. (1996) - complemented with additional sources, as cited in the
text. [5] See also Annex 2 [6] See annex 4 for glossary of terms. |
