Benno Pokorny and Helen Desmond1
Background
In 1992, the intense negotiations among governments at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) resulted in the non-legally binding authoritative statement of principles for a global consensus on the management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests, also known as the “Forest Principles”, as well as Chapter 11 of Agenda 21: Combating Deforestation. Since than, the United Nations under the auspices of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) invested in the development of coherent policies to promote the management, conservation and sustainable development of forests. In 1995, an informal, high level Interagency Task Force on Forests (ITFF) was set up to coordinate the inputs of international organizations to the forest policy process. Until 1997, the International Panel on Forests (IPF), and subsequently until 2000 the Intergovernmental Forum on Forest (IFF), examined a wide range of forest-related topics over a five-year period. Key outcomes of the deliberations under these processes were the IPF/IFF Proposals for Action, representing 270 proposals for action towards sustainable forest management. Although not legally binding, participants in these processes are under a political obligation to implement the agreed proposals for action and each country is expected to plan and assess their implementation.
In 2000, the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC) established the intergovernmental United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) with the main objective of promoting “… the management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests and to strengthen long-term political commitment to this end…” “based on the Rio Declaration, the Forest Principles, Chapter 11 of Agenda 21 and the outcome of the IPF/IFF processes...“. UNFF is composed of all States Members of the United Nations and specialized agencies and meets in annual sessions. Multi-stakeholder dialogues are an integral part of the agenda at UNFF sessions.
ECOSOC invited the heads of 14 relevant international organizations to form a Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) to support the work of UNFF and foster increased cooperation and coordination on forests. Specifically this group was asked to support the implementation of the IPF/IFF Proposals for Action by providing information and technical assistance to countries, facilitating regional and international initiatives, identifying and mobilizing financial resources and strengthening political support for sustainable forest management.
Monitoring and assessment of, as well as reporting about, progress in the implementation of forest-related agreements constitute one of the key functions of UNFF. This includes the development of a simple voluntary reporting system on the implementation of IPF/IFF Proposals for Action; the utilization of existing information and assessment to review progress towards sustainable forest management and the state of forests; and reviews of the effectiveness of the international arrangement on forests, including addressing the institutional framework of UNFF. Criteria and indicators on sustainable forest management (C&I) are expected to provide a framework for monitoring, assessing and reporting on national trends. The UNFF Multi-Year Programme of Work (MYPOW) has scheduled for the fourth session the discussion of monitoring, assessment and reporting, including the aspect of harmonizing concepts, terminologies and definitions as well as the utilization of C&I for national and international assessment of forests.
UNFF invited CPF to assist in developing an efficient system of monitoring, assessment and reporting and also established a small informal group of experts on this topic. To fulfill this task, the UNFF planned to systematically explore not only existing information sources such as Forest Resource Assessments (FRA), the initiatives of the International Union of Forestry Research Organization (IUFRO), the international C&I processes but also non-governmental organization (NGO)-driven approaches such as Global Forest Watch (GFW). Recently, there has been debate as to how C&I, developed to support countries in their endeavors for to manage their forests sustainably, can also help in implementing the IPF/IFF Proposals for Action and to evaluate progress towards sustainable forest management (ECOSOC, 2003). This expectation was based on the fact that C&I would provide both, a robust framework for technical assessment details as well as a coherent structure for the interpretation of assessment results (Prabhu et al., 1998). These characteristics would significantly help to articulate, accumulate and exchange information at national and international levels. In addition, the utilization of C&I is seen as a promising opportunity to increase the understanding of sustainable forest management among forest managers, thus directly and indirectly benefiting populations and decision-makers.
International C&I processes provide member countries with a common set of C&I to define what characterizes sustainable management of forests. This is expected to improve the quality of forest management at management as well as at political levels by facilitating the measurement of progress towards sustainable development of forests. C&I processes play a fundamental role for in the development and implementation of C&I. Currently, there are nine international C&I initiatives and processes at different levels of maturity (Table 1). Generally, C&I sets deal with the same principles as those for sustainable forest management (i.e. Anonymous, 2001; Pokorny and Adams, 2003). About 150 countries are members of one or more C&I processes, which confirms the importance of C&I as a national forest policy instrument. Lacking implementation at country level means, however, that much of the potential of this instrument still remains untapped. The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) has had a pioneering role in both developing and implementing C&I. The pan-European C&I were adopted on the expert level in 1994 and they were formally endorsed in 1998. The Montreal process was launched in 1993 and its C&I were concluded in 1995. In the same year, eight countries in the Amazon region initiated the Tarapoto proposal. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) supported three C&I processes on C&I launched in the mid-1990s: the African Dry Zone process covering the sub-Saharan area, the Near East process, and the Dry Forest Asia initiative. In addition to these, C&I have been developed in Central America under the Lepaterique process launched in 1997 and in Africa under the auspices of the African Timber Organization (ATO).
Although there are still conceptual and technical problems, many C&I sets have already been developed (Hendricks; 2003; Prabhu et al., 2003). Thus, a number of countries started implementing them, which means, in the most limited sense, their assessment at a national level. However, the assessment and monitoring of indicators are still at the beginning, and implementation and refinement of C&I sets have to be viewed as an iterative process. Three processes have started to implement C&I; others are still in pilot phases. However, first initial problems have been identified:
• significant additional administrative burden for the countries, especially if overlapping with other assessment processes;
• lack of resources, technical knowledge and human capacities in some countries;
• some indicators not suitable for assessment;
• difficulties to define proper assessment methods;
• difficulties for data aggregation at the international level, due to deficits in comparability, completeness, consistency and credibility.
Considering the diversity of existing assessment initiatives with similar goals, and promising initiatives for enhancing collaboration between national and international research and development organizations, the paper deals with the potential of networking and information management for reducing those problems related to the implementation of C&I at national level in order to monitor and assess progress towards sustainable forest management.
The paper is structured in three sections: Section I explores existing networks related to international assessment processes of country-specific aspects relevant to the C&I processes. In Section II the existing options to enhance the implementation of C&I by improved networking are discussed critically. Chapter III provides recommendations to achieve greater effectiveness of different C&I processes.
1 Assistant Professor, University of Freiburg (associated to CIFOR); Tennenbacker Strasse 4, 79106 Freiburg, Germany. Tel: 49 791 203 3680; Fax: 49 761 203 3781; E-mail: [email protected]; and Private Consultant, Australian National University, Canberra.
