Framework for Evaluating Sustainable Land Management (FESLM)

The FESLM is a strategic framework approach for evaluating sustainable land management. The framework contains a ‘logical pathway’, a series of logical steps connecting all aspects of the land use – environmental, economic and social – which collectively determine whether that form of land management is or will become sustainable. Land use 'sustainability' is seen as an extension of land use 'suitability' into the future, the evaluation of which can be guided by the 1976 FAO Framework for Land Evaluation. The FESLM pathway consists of two main stages. The first stage, with two levels, defines the purpose of the evaluation (WHAT is to be evaluated). The second stage, with three levels, defines the process of Analysis (HOW the evaluation is done). Level 1 specifies the objective, by identifying the land use system to be evaluated in terms of its purpose, its location, and the time period for sustainability. Level 2 describes the means, by identifying the management practices to be employed to attain the objective. Level 3 specifies the evaluation factors: the qualities, attributes, processes, controlling interests or constraints which affect sustainability in the context of the evaluation and against which the sustainability analysis is conducted. The FESLM contains checklists of physical, biological, economic and social evaluation factors that may influence sustainability of the evaluated land use system. In Level 4 diagnostic criteria based on an understanding of cause and effect are identified to assess how the selected evaluation factors impact on sustainability - through analysis of available information, modeling, expert systems and, if need be, experimentation. In Level 5 the indicators and their threshold levels are to be identified that may reveal the future status or condition of the evaluation factors and which individually, or together, provide a measure of sustainability. Conclusions on the probable sustainability of the land use system are drawn together in an 'Assessment end point'. These conclusions require to be validated by re-examination of all the steps in the analysis.