In order to understand how the Criteria and Indicators for sustainable management can be integrated in NFP, the cases of six countries were chosen. These were: Cameroon, Cape Verde, Ecuador, Indonesia, Senegal and Vietnam. These choices are based on achievements accomplished by the NFPs of those countries, but also on the wish to cover different geographic situations (tropical countries, humid and dry); sizes (regional powers or simple islands); and the prevailing forestry contexts.
However, first of all the list of Criteria and Indicators should be specified.
In the framework of the Processes and Initiatives of Helsinki, Montreal, UNEP/FAO and Tarapoto, several sets of Criteria and Indicators were established. It then appeared necessary to harmonise the lists and a session of the "Inter-Governmental Seminar on Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management (August 19-22, 1996, Helsinki, Finland)" was consecrated to this. In the summary report,4 the working group writes: "The group recognised that existing sets of national level criteria and indicators are conceptual similar" but also underlines that "As many countries have not yet been involved in criteria and indicators processes, and as those countries which are currently involved are just starting implementation of criteria and indicators, it was recognised that it may be premature to try to achieve convergence".
4
Summary Report of the Inter-Governmental Seminar on Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management, 22 August 1996.
However, in the framework of the "Expert Consultation on Global Forest Resources Assessment 2000, Kotka III (June 10-14, 1996, Kotka, Finland)", Mengin-Lecreulx (in the note "Indicators of sustainable forest management at national level and possibilities to assess them in national, regional and global forest inventories") established a list of convergence based on the sets of Criteria and Indicators of Helsinki, Montreal, UNEP/FAO and Tarapoto. Thus, 80 Indicators were defined and sub-divided into six categories:
1) State and change process of forest resources
2) Biological diversity
3) Health and vitality
4) Production of wood and other forest products
5) Soil and water protection
6) Socio-economic functions
In his study, Mengin-Lecreulx limited the review of convergence and comparability list to the first five categories and only partially approached the Socio-economic functions category. In order to take into account all the various Criteria and Indicators developed in the sets of Helsinki, Montreal, UNEP/FAO and Tarapoto, we have completed the Socio-economic functions category (20 more Indicators) and integrated the Legal and institutional frameworks category (9 Indicators).
Therefore the list of Criteria and Indicators (see Annex 1: List of Indicators), on which the rest of our study is based is the following:
|
Number of indicators | |
|
State and change process of forest resources, |
22 |
|
Biological diversity, |
14 |
|
Health and vitality, |
18 |
|
Production of wood and other forest products, |
11 |
|
Soil and water protection, |
09 |
|
Socio-economic functions, |
26 |
|
Legal and institutional frameworks, |
09 |
|
Total |
109 |
On the basis of the above, a first step was to determine whether the notion Criteria and Indicators was not already implicitly present in the NFP procedures and at which step of the process they were applied. An assessment will attempt to determine the importance of the Indicators and to understand their performance in each country. Depending on the results obtained, the implementation of the Criteria and Indicators in NFP could be specified.
