A. National Forest Programmes
B. Criteria and Indicators of Sustainable Forest Management
C. Complementary Procedures
The objective of NFP is to provide the necessary strategic orientation for the implementation of the programmes and activities in the forestry sector in which all the concerned actors participate¹. It's main function is at national or sub-national level.
1 For more details, we recommend that you read the document published by the Forestry Department of FAO: Formulation, Implementation and Revision of National Forestry Programmes: Basic Principles and Operational Choices, Rome 1996
At operational level, the NFP process can be divided into four phases:
· Organisation ProcessThis concerns the identification of the actors in the forestry sector or influencing the sector, or those being influenced by the sector; organisation of national coordination mechanisms and elaboration of a communication strategy.· Strategic Planning
This includes an initial analysis of the present situation, including, if necessary, detailed sector-based studies, followed by elaboration and analysis of the scenarios resulting from a combination of options relating to the domains studied. The final phase is decisive; the choice of certain scenarios can result in political, institutional or operational options which can develop in different ways: Declaration of Forestry Policies, Forestry Law, Forestry Strategy or Plan of Action etc.· Implementation
This is related to the detailed formulation of investment programmes and projects, obtaining funds and the coordination and follow-up of activities.· Revision and Up-date
This concerns evaluation of the result of activities and, if necessary, periodic review of their basic strategy.
It should be noted that this is a continuous process during which the different phases can interact.
During the 1990's, the attention drawn to the forests and their change enhanced the concept of durability and the need for criteria and indicators to describe and measure forest management. Different international conferences have established lists of indicators to be applied essentially on a national level. The Processes of Helsinki and Montreal for boreal or temperate countries, the Proposition of Tarapoto and the Tegucigalpa Meeting for Latin American countries and the UNEP/FAO initiative (Nairobi Meeting) and the Cairo Meeting for the dry African Zone, Near and Middle East, are the realisation of these efforts.
As the task of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Forestry (IFF)2 was to reach, in an open and participatory manner, a consensus and formulation of propositions coordinated for the sustainable management of forests, the role or Criteria and Indictors was emphasised and it was specified that their development must be "a gradual process based on national sustainable forest management policies".
2Implemented in 1995.
What should be understood by Criteria and Indicator?
The document "Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management"3 (1997) puts forward the following definitions:
3Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management in Finland, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry 1997.Criteria describe the different aspects of sustainability at a conceptual level. A criterion is a characteristic feature or a set of conditions, based on which it is possible to evaluate the various aspects of forestry. A criterion contains a built-in goal to strive for. The evaluation of a criterion is based on evaluation of indicators.
Indicators show or reflect the state of art as well as time related changes. They indicates how well each criterion meets the goals set. Typically an indicator shows a quantitative change. As all aspects of forestry cannot be measured with quantitative indicators, some descriptive indicators have been formulated to reflect the change regarding the legal, institutional and economic policy framework as well as the informational means to implement the policy.
When the use of an Indicator is decided on, it is up to the scientific community to validate it and establish it's assessment conditions. The interest of policy makers is, thus, limited to available results to establish a strategy of activities. Therefore, the Criteria and Indicators must have a clear and even simple definition.
It appears that the Criteria and Indicators can play a part in the framework of NFP. Indeed, the objective of NFP is to formulate and support the establishment of a political framework for the sustainable conservation, management and development of forests, and the progress accomplished needs to be followed up and measured. Whereas, the Indicators are defined as showing or reflecting the state and change of sustainable development. The Indicators could be used as measuring instruments for the NFP. In fact the Criteria and Indicators would then become indicating signals concerning the degree of formulation, as well as the progress accomplished by NFP.
Moreover, forest resources assessment activities are to be taken into account as they reflect the state and change of forest resources. It is the capacity to provide such information which will allow to: (i) reply to certain Indicators of sustainable forest management with a numerical value; and (ii) note if an intention to follow the situation of the forestry domain exists in order to better control the development of a forestry policy.
Thus, it is important to study in which way NFP and the Criteria and Indicators interact in order to reinforce the process of sustainable forest management and to take note of the complementary role of forest resources assessment.
