Dear Mr. Gritten
Thank you for the interesting comments and challenging questions. Any indicator set needs to be put in a context and address specific questions.
On your specific remarks
#2 I am not sure we will break down the totals, but at least use IUCN concepts of what consitutes “protection”. Many foresters would say that all forests are protected, simply by the existence of a forest law, but this is not what is meant here.
#5 Two points: “logging” is included because that is the title of the heading in ISIC. Others have suggested a wider scope for this indicator. You raise an important point about the meaning of the indicator. Frequently SFM is welcomed as a provider of jobs, but people tend to forget that labour, like all other factors of production should be used efficiently. We should not aim at SFM only to provide jobs. And in many advanced forest countries, employment in forestry is dropping steadily because of improved productivity (while forest related jobs may be expanding – but we don’t know for sure)
#11 ODA is included because there is a commitment to provide more ODA (or financial respources in general), and this should be monitored. But I share your concerns about the meaning of this, espcially as many countries in the world receive no ODA, for forests or anything else. Here, it is the donors, rather than the recipients who might be monjitoried.
#16 Likewise with forest dependent people. Here the main commitment is to eradicate extreme poverty for all forest dependent people. Perhaps we should focus on reducing the number of forest dependent people living in extreme poverty?
Community forestry is of course important in those countries where it is possible/apprpriate, which is by no means all countries in the world (remember this global core set applies to all countries, not just developing countries), so this might be difficult. Is there a clear and accepted defintion of “community forestry”?
Thanks again
Kit Prins
Facilitator
Г-н Christopher Prins