Criteria and indicators have been described as the most important and innovative forest management tool developed in the 20th century. It has also been a very popular instrument as seen by around 150 countries subscribing to it in less than a decade12, and on a voluntary basis. Such popularity stems partly from the fact that through C&I it has been possible to derive a global understanding of what constitutes sustainable forest management at the country level, as reflected in the seven thematic areas that are common to all regional and international C&I processes. The primary value of C&I is as a tool to help assess country progress towards sustainable forest management (SFM).
The Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF) and the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF) placed great importance on C&I as a vehicle for achieving SFM. This is evident from the many related proposals for action emanating from these two bodies. The UN Forum on Forests (UNFF) is currently engaged in promoting the implementation of these proposals, as well as advocating their use in monitoring assessment and reporting on country progress towards SFM. There are also a number of other international organizations that are involved in the implementing of C&I. The most notable among these are FAO, ITTO and CIFOR. The nine regional and international C&I processes currently in operation are also responsible for promoting their use.
But while there is global recognition of the importance of C&I in promoting sustainable forest management, with nearly 70 percent of all countries belonging to one or more of the processes, their implementation, except in a few processes, has been slow and uneven. MCPFE, MPCI and ITTO have taken several steps to promote implementation by their 85 member countries. They have also reported on their progress with many countries publishing sustainable forest assessments using C&I. But the other processes have not yet reached the level of reporting. They are in different stages from evaluating their relevance to individual countries to defining national indicators or establishing baseline data to monitor future progress. There are also around 65 countries that do not belong to any C&I process.
The reasons for slow progress in some regions are many and varied. A number of studies, expert consultations and international meetings have focused on identifying the causes and seeking solutions. ITTO, which has undertaken comprehensive field testing and training on C&I, found a number of factors that have contributed to the slow progress in applying C&I (Johnson, 2001). Our own survey of the processes also confirmed the findings of other investigations. The most common reasons for the slow traction identified in them are lack of political commitment, technical and resource capacity, data, and understanding and awareness.
12 See Appendix 2 for list of countries involved.
