Foro Global sobre Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (Foro FSN)

Este miembro contribuyó a:

    • Adam van Opzeeland, in collaboration with colleagues from the Ministry for Primary Industries, New Zealand

      We would like to thank Mr Kit Prince for his excellent work in drafting and developing these indicators, and commend the task force for their work in refining the set. It is pleasing to see the progress made, and the continued input from a range of stakeholders through the Ottawa meeting last year, the OLI meeting in Rome last November, and other international forests meetings.

      Some general comments and questions:

      • We are supportive of continued efforts to streamline reporting across forest fora, and identify this global core set of forest indicators as an excellent opportunity to advance these efforts.
      • We caution against the “over-dilution” of indicators. Many of the indicators have been somewhat simplified by the refinement process. Although this allows for flexibility and country-specific circumstances, which is important, we also risk rendering the indicators to a state that lacks significance, ambition and usability.
      • In many instances the “comments” section identifies further ways to break down the indicator when reporting (e.g. can use the IUCN categories for indicator 2) or a suggested unit or %, should this be reflected in the title of the indicator itself, or are we leaving this to the “explanatory note”?
      • The explanatory notes will be important for the understanding of these indicators. This will be especially important for those in binary form (e.g. indicators 6, 7, 8, 13), and for those that, without a unit (e.g. %, ha), could be interpreted as a binary indicator.
      • At the OLI in November it was acknowledged that the narrative to accompany these indicators will be important. Will this be prescribed within the core set, or will the option and nature of a narrative to accompany the indicator be the choice of the individual body to which the country is reporting?
      • Using established, widely used and proven indicators as the basis for the core set is a sensible starting point.
      • Ensuring that the SDG 15.2 indicators are a part of this set is both practical and important; the SDGs are a globally recognised platform and ensuring the international forests community’s alignment with them is important for the profile of forests for sustainable development and for the profile of individual forest bodies themselves. With the FAO being custodian of these SDG indicators, we can be confident that they will remain relevant and useful for the set. We should keep in mind that the SDG indicators are reviewed periodically, and that flexibility should be built into the core set to allow for changes of this nature over time.
      • As well as the established indicators, it has been encouraging to see efforts to develop indicators for new and emerging issues or topics, and for those that have been around for some time yet do not have widely used or acknowledged indicators. The visibility and usability of a core set can allow for the advancement of conversations on these topics, and the best way to measure progress towards better management. It may be that the initial core set cannot accommodate all of these, but we do not want to see the discussions on these indicators go to waste. Having a system through which an ongoing dialogue can continue to address these issues or topics, and an opportunity for developing indicators to “graduate” to the core set, is encouraged.
      • It was recognised at the OLI in Rome last year that socio-economic indicators for forests and for SFM are 1) very important and 2) in need of further discussion and development. Recognising and effectively measuring the interdependence between forests and people is also critical to the value proposition for intact forest systems. Socio-economic indicators should be well represented in this list, and are excellent examples of a (very broad) topic that should attract the aforementioned further development and “graduation” into the list over time.
      • We join others in noting that the core set lacks specific indicators on biodiversity and ecosystem services (though indicator 4 is indirectly relevant). While noting that this core set is focused on forests and forestry, we also stress that 1) many CPF bodies’ mandates concern forests, but forests are not their central focus, and 2) even bodies primarily focused on forests and forestry are increasingly adopting an “integrated” approach, or cross-sectoral approach, to forest land management. Biodiversity and ecosystem services represent a wider consideration of both the ways in which forests interact with other land and water usages, and also the value of standing forests and their functions.
      • The Montreal Process on Criteria and Indicators for the Conservation and Sustainable Management of Temperate and Boreal Forests (The Montreal Process) has, as one of its 5 criteria, the “conservation of biological diversity”. This criterion includes indicator sets on ecosystem diversity, species diversity, and genetic diversity. These can provide the basis for further indicators, or one robust and useful indicator on biodiversity and ecosystem services.

      Some comments on individual proposed indicators:

      Indicator 2: Have no problem with the removal of “legally established” but would prefer to keep the “%” from previous iteration and use recognised IUCN and CBD definitions of protected areas.

      Indicator 3:Although this indicator is quantitative, narrative and explanation notes are still important to avoid perverse outcomes by maximising biomass (e.g. with fast growing plantations) at the expense of natural forests, or other inappropriate sites.

      Indicator 4: This is similar to Montreal Process indicator 4.1.a, however we propose to change the first “and” to “or”. This better aligns with the Montreal Process indicator and allows for the inclusion of forest area that is managed for the protection of soil or water, but not necessarily as its primarily designated as land area for this purpose. It would then read “Forest area designated or managed for protection of soil and water”

      Indicator 6: We acknowledge that effective SFM is contextual and a different challenge for different countries, and thus broadly support the inclusion of this indicator. We note that the inclusion of the deleted sections in the explanatory note is important (as is noted in the comments section), and that the note should acknowledge that this deleted section is a list of examples and that there are others beyond the list (i.e. please include “inter alia” to accommodate this). The indicator itself could be strengthened by inserting “ongoing implementation of” in place of “existence of”.

      Indicators 7 and 8: Similar to Indicator 6, it would be good to see something in the title of the indicator that requires an ongoing process, and the improvement/strengthening of such a process. We support the retention of ‘scientifically sound’ in indicator 7.

      Indicator 13: An indicator to address illegal logging is important, and we are pleased that the preferred indicator at this time is a policy based, rather than an outcome-based, indicator, as we know that reliable data are very hard to obtain, and what is considered legal is contextual. We also note that indicator 10 could be complemented by this indicator, adding chain of custody to forest certification.

      Indicator 14: it could be useful to count the degree of forest disturbance/year and the causes, but it is difficult to attribute this to “forest health and vitality”, as some disturbance will have a positive effect on forest health, and some a negative, and in many cases this cannot be determined for longer time periods.

      Indicator 18: the use of the wood once is harvested is beyond the scope of sustainable forest management, as forests should be managed when growing, and when harvested, in a legal and sustainable way regardless of end use. There could also be issues with what constitutes modern clean systems and put cost-barriers in place for traditional and low-income forest-dependent com

      Indicator 19: This is an important topic but, as is noted in the comments, the indicator is not yet ready. As mentioned in our general comments above, there is a need for acknowledgement of ecosystem services from forests, and this is important for the value proposition of intact forests and forest systems, and forestry practises that nurture these.

      Agree with removal of indicators 20 and 21: 20 is out of scope, and carbon (21) should be left to the work of the appropriate body (UNFCCC).

      Finalising the list of core indicators

      As a final comment, we are interested in clarifying the process for finalising the list of core indicators, and members states having final input. It was mentioned at the 12th Session of the United Nations Forum on Forests that the list would be finalised following the FRA expert consultation. Will members states be given the opportunity to review this list again, or an opportunity to approve the list before finalisation? When and where will the CPF task force present the final proposed list?