0372-B1

Level Indicators: Experiences from the Canadian Model Forest Network

Martin von Mirbach^[1]

ABSTRACT

In the past decade there have been several national and international initiatives to develop criteria and indicators of sustainable forest management (SFM). National indicators, however, cannot always provide useful feedback about trends at the forest management unit scale, where most decisions are made. In 1997 the Canadian Model Forest Network began to develop and apply local level indicators (LLIs) of SFM. Since then, model forests have addressed various challenges in developing LLIs, including generating commitment, screening indicators and gathering data. These challenges can be addressed using multi-stakeholder partnerships, which ensure that there are both diverse perspectives, and people and agencies to share workloads and collaborate on joint initiatives. Model forests have found that LLIs can be used for diverse purposes. Locally relevant indicators can be especially helpful in reporting status and trends, since local citizens and agencies understand them. Reporting on status and trends can also focus attention on filling gaps in initial attempts to report on LLIs, thus providing a more informed and balanced overview of forest health and SFM. Also, LLIs can provide a framework for determining appropriate thresholds for forest managers to adhere to. Most model forests use the criteria adopted by the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers (CCFM) as a framework, but one limitation to this approach is that subdividing the concept of SFM can detract from a more holistic understanding of forests and forest health.

1. Introduction

Following the 1992 Earth Summit, developing C & I of SFM became an international priority. The following decade saw the development of a number of international frameworks of C & I of SFM, including a framework developed by the International Tropical Timber Organization for tropical forests, the Helsinki Process (designed by and for European countries), the Montreal Process (for boreal and temperate forests), the Tarapoto Process (for Amazon countries), and a process for dry-zone African countries. These initiatives all aimed to provide a common understanding of what is meant by SFM, as well as a consistent framework for describing, assessing, and evaluating a country’s progress towards sustainability at the national level.

In 1994 the CCFM convened a process to develop C & I of SFM consistent with the Montreal Process, but adapted to the Canadian context. The resulting framework of six criteria and eighty-plus national-level indicators was the basis for national-level reports in 1997 and 2000.

While national indicators can be used to monitor and report on national trends, they do not always provide useful information to guide decision-making. Most decisions directly affecting forests and forest health are made at the scale of the forest management unit, where national-level indicators are often not relevant. If forest managers are to receive useful feedback on their actions, they need indicators that relate as directly as possible to factors they control. At the same time, if indicators are to be socially relevant, they must be understood and accepted by the people most affected by forestry operations; namely, those living in and near the management unit.

The Canadian Model Forest Network (CMFN) was established in 1992 as a network of “working forests” representing a broad range of forest conditions in Canada, with each Model Forest functioning as a living laboratory in which to explore new methods^[2]. Each model forest is also an experiment in the sociology of decision-making, being made up of partners who have differing perspectives, but a shared interest in SFM.

In 1997 all model forests agreed to focus on developing and implementing LLI. This was seen as an opportunity for Canadian forest managers to gain practical experience in implementing procedures for monitoring and reporting that would be consistent with national and international reporting requirements, but also locally relevant and practical. Thus was born the CMFN’s Strategic Initiative on Local Level Indicators; the subsequent five years has been an intense period of developing, refining, and implementing LLI. The remainder of this paper provides an overview of some of the lessons learned, and how the experience gained through the CMFN is helping to provide meaningful information on forest trends.

2. Common challenges in developing LLI

As each model forest worked within its partnership to develop and implement LLI, challenges arose that were common to most or all model forests. Three of the most relevant are discussed below.

2.1 Generating commitment

One of the key characteristics of any adequate LLI framework is its interdisciplinary nature, requiring diverse expertise to encompass the ecological, economic, and sociological aspects of SFM. Model forests have dealt with this challenge by forming multistakeholder committees to guide the development and use of LLI. Partners involved in LLI have included forestry companies and government agencies responsible for forest management, and also diverse other agencies or interests, including government agencies responsible for environment, wildlife, recreation and economic development; woodlot owners; Aboriginal organizations; non-timber forest businesses, such as tourism operators; environmental non-governmental organizations; community councils and community development agencies; and academics and educational institutions.

Each of these agencies has its own particular interest in LLI, and also has valuable information, knowledge, experience, and expertise that can help in developing locally relevant LLI. Partnership-based approaches can help generate shared commitment, but require constant attention to maintain focus and momentum.

2.2 Selecting appropriate indicators

Although many sets of proposed indicators have been developed, it is rarely possible (or even necessarily desirable) to use a generic set of LLI without extensive modification. There are often technical or practical reasons why indicators chosen for one region are not suitable elsewhere, perhaps because ecological or social conditions are different, or because the same information is not available. Moreover, a set of indicators that is imposed on a region will rarely be as well-accepted as indicators developed indigenously.

In selecting appropriate LLI, model forests have used a variety of approaches. Some started with the CCFM’s national set of indicators and assessed each for local relevance. Other model forests started with a broader compilation of potential indicators culled from many sources, and then narrowed the list. Still other model forests created sets of locally relevant indicators from scratch.

At some point it is always necessary to prune lists of potential indicators; thus, a screening process is required. Although each model forest used its own screening criteria, there were many similarities; Table 1 offers a generic set of screening criteria.

Table 1: Criteria to evaluate indicator quality and appropriateness

In many cases, indicators that fail one or more of these criteria are retained despite their deficiencies. The criteria presume that indicators can be precisely measured and quantified, but there are valid reasons for including non-quantifiable indicators: in some circumstances, descriptive or qualitative indicators can be more informative. For example, an indicator such as “degree of public participation in decision-making,” although it is neither measurable nor predictable, may nevertheless be preferred to a quantitative indicator such as “number of public meetings.” In other cases, indicators are included in order to flag the need for enhanced data-gathering (e.g., “soil nutrient changes in recently logged areas”). In still other cases, indicators are retained as “markers” of especially important values (e.g., “respect and provision for Aboriginal and treaty rights”). These examples do not satisfy all of the criteria in Table 1 above, but are nonetheless retained because their importance and value is not directly tied to the quality or extent of available data for that indicator.

2.3 Gathering data

Supplying data for the selected indicators requires both accessing existing data (e.g., timber inventories, permanent sample plots, provincial government records, Statistics Canada data), and generating new data (derived from, for example, on-site monitoring, remote sensing, and public surveys). Some of the many challenges faced by model forests in this regard are briefly described below.

a) Technical challenges. These include difficulties in obtaining data at the most relevant scale, or in merging different data sets. The latter problem has proven to be especially prevalent when attempting to obtain consistent data covering national parks as well as industrial timber lands.

b) Practical challenges. The most common is the sheer difficulty of juggling data collection requirements for so many different indicators, resulting in pressure to limit the number of indicators being monitored in the initial stages. Partnership-based approaches have proven to be particularly effective in sharing the burden of gathering data on a broad set of diverse indicators.

c) Human (or institutional) challenges. It is sometimes difficult to access information, either because of its proprietary nature or because of an organization’s reluctance to release it. These challenges are not easily overcome, but partnership-based approaches which encourage adequate buy-in from the beginning have been helpful.

3. Application of LLI

This section introduces a few examples to show some of the varied ways that LLI are actually being used. It is not intended represent the full range of uses to which LLI are being put within the CMFN, but simply offers a few highlights.

3.1 Identifying trends of concern

The Eastern Ontario Model Forest is situated in a highly urbanized environment, with 88 percent of the land privately owned, largely in small parcels of land. Management and stewardship are divided among several thousand landowners. For the vast majority, forestry is not a principal occupation, but at best a sideline, and while landowners want to foster sustainable practices on their lands, they often lack the technical information and professional expertise to evaluate the impacts of their actions.

The Eastern Ontario Model Forest responded by compiling information on an initial set of 18 initial indicators, selected because information was readily available and because they would communicate effectively to a non-technical public. Their State of the Forest Report (Johnson and Heaven 1999) was designed to communicate the broad sweep of land-use changes that are altering the forest landscape. While the Model Forest continues to refine the information included in the report, it is being used to communicate about SFM to those people whose actions have significant impact on the forest landscape.

3.2 Focusing attention on expanded and improved data collection

The Lake Abitibi Model Forest (LAMF) in northern Ontario issued its first Status Report on LLI in 2000 (Griffin 2000). It reports on 37 indicators and reflects the considerable effort that went into systematic reporting across all six of the CCFM’s criteria. The report provides a valuable perspective on the quality and extent of local data. Table 2 lists some of the indicators chosen, the measures used, and the types of data available.

Table 2: Selected indicators used by Lake Abitibi Model Forest, and data reported on

The Lake Abitibi Model Forest has made a remarkable effort to compile the best available information, but the examples above illustrate the wide disparities in the availability of relevant information. Much of that information is good, but there are also gaps that become obvious when presented in a comprehensive State of the Forest report. These gaps are important in identifying where further efforts are needed, and it is hoped that by calling attention to them, the LAMF and its partners will mobilize additional efforts to address them.

3.3 Setting thresholds through participatory processes

Several model forests have taken their LLI initiatives beyond simply identifying appropriate indicators, and have ensured that discussion also focused on appropriate thresholds or targets for those indicators. This has not always been easy, because model forest organizations are not themselves directly responsible for land stewardship or forest management decisions. Model forests have no mandate or authority to determine what their partners with legal management responsibility do in the forests under their control. Model forests can have an impact, however, through a combination of goodwill, moral persuasion, incentives in the form of jointly-funded research and field projects, and assistance with convening multi-stakeholder groups.

The Fundy Model Forest in eastern Canada assigned each indicator a functional management level based on desired or sustainable levels. These were reviewed by the landowners, and a set of proposed Best Management Practices emerged. A similar process was followed at the Manitoba Model Forest, with implementation depending on the participation of the Tembec Pine Falls operations. At the Foothills Model Forest in Alberta, the industrial partner (Weldwood of Canada, Hinton Division) used lessons from the model forest’s LLI initiative towards its own development of a participatory process and management plan, subsequently registered under the Canadian Standards Association’s SFM system. In the McGregor Model Forest in British Columbia, scenario planning sessions used indicators to explore the implications of various management strategies, developing spatial modeling and computer visualization techniques to depict projected future landscapes, and assisting in discussions on desired future forest conditions. In each of these cases, the ultimate responsibility for implementation rested with the forestry company; the model forests helped provide the tools and facilitated the initial discussions.

Conclusion

LLI have been adopted and applied at the level of the forest management unit for many different reasons, with the intent of producing many different outcomes. Those applications and desired outcomes often differ from the desired outcomes for national Criteria and Indicator initiatives, though they share a similar framework.

At the forest management unit level, LLI can be used to monitor and report on status and trends in forests and forest health at the local level; foster improved understanding of ecosystem relationships and SFM; guide further research efforts; provide a framework to guide management planning, especially for forecasting future values in an adaptive management planning framework; define and delineate best management practices; provide a basis for dialogue among diverse interests; communicate effectively about SFM; and foster improved accountability in forest management.

LLI initiatives generally use the same frameworks of criteria that have been developed for use at the national and international scales. The criteria (usually general enough to be valid at any scale) collectively describe the broad range of economic, environmental, and social values that society expects from forests, and thus help to define the breadth of what is required in order to practice SFM.

However, there are potential drawbacks to relying on broad frameworks of criteria to guide indicator selection. These criteria divide the concept of SFM into different ecological and socio-economic categories. This can be a useful way to organize a complex topic, and the criteria provide a checklist to ensure that key values are addressed, but this approach can undermine the holistic interconnectedness that most people intuitively accept is intrinsic to fostering deep understanding of forests. The use of criteria frameworks has also made it difficult for the community of forest interests to agree on a small set of core indicators, since there are too many topics identified as being of equal importance.

The forest community still stands to benefit from learning and adopting approaches to indicators that have been developed for use outside the forestry sector, including sustainability reporting and community health assessments. There is no inherent reason why indicators based originally on national and international C&I frameworks cannot be adapted and modified to more readily reflect lessons learned in other fields, but it will take special efforts to “think outside the box”. In the meantime, LLI have proven to be a valuable tool to deepen understanding, encourage participation, and improve accountability in the forest sector.

Bibliography

Canadian Council of Forest Ministers, 1995. Defining Sustainable Forest Management: a Canadian Approach to Criteria and Indicators. Canadian Council of Forest Ministers. 22 pp. http://www.ccfm.org

Griffin, T., 2000. Lake Abitibi Model Forest Local Level Indicator Status Report: 2000. Lake Abitibi Model Forest. 120 pp. http://www.lamf.net

Johnson, L. and Heaven, P. The Eastern Ontario Model Forest’s 1998-99 State of the Forest Report. Eastern Ontario Model Forest. 88 pp. http://www.eomf.on.ca

Montreal Process 1995. Criteria and Indicators for the Conservation and Sustainable Management of Temperate and Boreal Forests. 27 pp. http://www.mpci.org

von Mirbach, M., 2000. A User’s Guide to Local Level Indicators of Sustainable Forest Management: Experiences from the Canadian Model Forest Network. Canada’s Model Forest Program. 265 pp. http://www.modelforest.net