International
Conference on the Contribution of Criteria and Indicators
for Sustainable Forest Management:The Way Forward
CICI-2003
FINAL REPORT
The International Conference on Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management (CICI-2003) was held in Guatemala City, 3 - 7 February 2003, to considerThe Contribution of Criteria and Indicators to Sustainable Forest Management: The Way Forward.The Conference brought together 109 participants, representing 51 governments, 10 international organizations, nine criteria and indicator processes, and three private sector and non-governmental organizations and groups. Its main objectives were to:
1. Strengthen the elaboration and application of criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management.
2. Promote political commitment for the use of criteria and indicators as tools for sustainable forest management.
3. Strengthen institutional capacity and stakeholder partnerships for implementing criteria and indicators and to facilitate the exchange of information among all stakeholders.
4. Contribute to the work of the UN Forum on Forests (UNFF) and to international initiatives on indicators related to sustainable development.
The Conference was hosted and organized by the National Forest Service of Guatemala (Instituto Nacional de Bosques, INAB) and co-sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) and the Governments of Finland and the United States of America (US Forest Service, US Department of State).
CICI-2003 represented the second international conference focused on criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management. The first conference, the Intergovernmental Seminar on Criteria and Indicators (ISCI), was hosted by the Government of Finland in Helsinki in August 1996. ISCI represented the first recognition by the international community of the importance of criteria and indicators as tools for assessing the state of a country's forests and in turn for contributing to informed policy and decision-making.The results of ISCI were adopted in 1997 by thead hocIntergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF) convened by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development from 1995 to 1997.
The Conferencewas organized in follow-up torecommendations of the FAO/ITTO/UNEP/CIFOR/IUFRO Expert Consultation on Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management held at FAO Headquarters, Rome, November 2000. These recommendations were, subsequently, endorsed by the 15th Session of COFO (Rome, March 2001), and supported by the Thirtieth Session of the International Tropical Timber Council (ITTC) (Cameroon, May 2001).