Dear Mr. Padurii
Thank you for your comments.
You suggest indicators 14 (health and vitality) and 15 (degraded forest) should be combined. I addressed this in my reply to Mr. Houngbo: the two are not quite the same, but both are difficult to measure at the national level. The issue of forest degradation occurs in the high level goals and targets, so should probably be maintained. It is clearly of the highest policy importance to combat and monitor forest degradation. Do you, or other participants, have suggestions for a robust way of defining and measuring “forest degradation”?
You suggest a new indicator on forest biodiversity. It is true that the lack of a biodiversity indicator is a weakness. The draft core set contains several proxies for forest biodiversity, mostly focused on policy instruments to promote biodiversity: protected areas (3), policies supporting SFM (6), stakeholder participation (8), management plan (9), certification (10), payments for ecosystem services (19). There is nothing concrete on outcomes, chiefly because no practical way of monitoring forest biodiversity at the national level, in most countries of the world, has emerged from the numerous discussions which have taken place. Perhaps a major open debate should be launched on this topic (possibly for the next global core set of forest related indicators)?
Thanks again
Kit Prins
Moderator
Mr. Christopher Prins