0070-B2
V. Alaric Sample 1
An approach to sustainable forest management that focuses only on extensive management at low or moderate intensity overlooks significant opportunities to increase both wood production and protect biodiversity. Developed temperate-forest countries have a responsibility to do both, before shifting the burden to developing countries in the tropics. In the United States, this more specialized approach to forest management has gradually manifested itself at the national level, but breaks down at the regional and community levels, due in part to a disproportionate distribution of public and private forests. Development of criteria and attributes by which to identify forests well suited to intensive management, much as has been done for forests of high conservation value, could help lead the way to a more effective political consensus on sustainable forest management, and substantial net improvements in both biodiversity conservation and sustainable wood production.
Forest management in many developed countries is characterized largely by low- to moderate-intensity management for a variety of uses and values. Multiple-use forest management has proven enormously durable in many different circumstances. This flexible, adaptive approach has for the most part allowed forest managers to balance a wide variety of demands on forests, while keeping within the bounds of sustainability.
The need to conserve biodiversity - and especially to protect habitats for threatened and endangered species - represents a fundamental challenge to the multiple-use model of forest management. Scientific uncertainty as to just where the limits of sustainability lie, and the degree of sensitive species' ability to recover should these limits be exceeded, have resulted in a conservative approach to biodiversity conservation. In many instances, this precautionary approach regards even a modest level of human manipulation in the ecosystem as exceeding the limits of what can be sustained.
We are now in an era in which the downward trend in biodiversity, and the potential of forest protection to slow that decline, is seen by many as sufficient reason to cease any and all forest management activities that potentially interfere with that objective. With the boundaries of sustainability - between the ecologically acceptable maximum management intensity, and the economically accepted minimum - thus so tightly drawn, it is difficult for forest managers to discern a new pathway by which biological diversity can be conserved within the context of actively managed forests (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Forest management and the changing bounds of sustainability
The world's greatest concentration of biodiversity in forest ecosystems - and the greatest threats to conserving that diversity - is in the tropics (Raven, 1987). These seemingly lush and irrepressible forests are more vulnerable to ecological damage than most temperate-zone forests, and much slower to recover from deforestation (Wilson, 1992). The continuing losses of forest area in the tropics are the single greatest threat to global biodiversity, a trend which is exacerbated by population growth rates in many tropical nations that far exceed those in most temperate-zone nations. "An awful symmetry binds the rise of humanity to the fall of biodiversity: the richest nations preside over the smallest and least interesting biotas, while the poorest nations, burdened by exploding populations and little scientific knowledge, are stewards of the largest." (Wilson, 1992).
Today, the need to greatly improve our conservation of biodiversity in forest ecosystems worldwide, while at the same time managing these renewable resources to help meet the material needs of an expanding human population, demands recognition in both policy and practice that:
The necessity of increasing both biodiversity conservation and wood production simultaneously, is accelerating the evolution toward three separate and distinct types of forest management (Hunter and Calhoun, 1996):
A spectrum approach to defining "sustainable forestry" must encompass all three categories - protected areas and plantations as well as "working forests" managed for multiple values and purposes (see Figure 2).
Forest Plantations | |
TYPE B |
Working Forest |
TYPE C |
Protected Areas |
Figure 2. Relative distributions of forest management intensities under two models
None of these three elements alone can be regarded as sustainable forestry. It is the overall system - with all its elements represented at the national, regional and local levels - that will constitute "sustainable forestry" in the future. There is no single set of standards to define how forestry should be practised in every location and in every circumstance. Any set of standards purporting to describe a system of sustainable forestry must take into account the need for bioreserves and intensively managed forest plantations, as well as "working forests" managed to provide an array of forest values, renewable resources and ecological services (see Figure 1).
Leading conservation organizations are beginning to recognize that intensive forest management on portions of the landscape well suited to this use can serve to reduce development pressures on other forest areas, and create new opportunities - both practical and political - to provide greater protection to areas of globally or regionally significant biodiversity value (Sedjo & Botkin, 1997; Hunter & Seymour, 1999). A recent report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) suggests that a significant expansion of the area of intensively managed forest plantations could allow the world's major forest products companies to meet a substantial share of the global demand for industrial roundwood from a relatively small proportion of the world's forest area, and open up new opportunities to provide outright protection to high conservation value forests, particularly those with globally significant biodiversity values (Howard & Stead, 2001). So convinced is WWF of the value of this approach, that they have called upon the world's ten largest forest products companies to collectively increase the area of intensively managed forest plantations by 5 million ha/yr - for the next 50 years (WWF, 2001). With this level of investment, WWF estimates that as much as 80% of the world demand for industrial roundwood in 2050 can be met from less than 20% of the world's forests. Furthermore, WWF asserts that this can all be done consistently with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) criteria for green certification, meaning that much of that 20% will be newly planted forests on retired marginal crop and pasture land, rather than plantations created by converting natural forests.
This is appealing at a global theoretical level, but there is a need to demonstrate the efficacy of this approach in practical application in different regions of the world, representing various biophysical, economic and social contexts (Hunter & Seymour, 2000). It has been argued that, in the US, this is essentially the pattern of forest land allocation that has already emerged, at least when viewed at the national level. Wood production has shifted largely to industrial timberlands and other private forests on about one-fifth of US forest land; biodiversity conservation is becoming a primary management goal in many public forests and forests managed by conservation NGOs, making up another one-fifth; and multiple-use management is still the de facto approach on both public and private forests that constitute the remaining three-fifths. Generally speaking, the most productive forest lands, especially those close to labour and markets, have found their way into ownership by forest industry or other private owners for whom wood production is a leading objective. Large, contiguous and often remote forest areas, comprising a wide variety of landforms and habitat types, are generally in public ownership.
This pattern breaks down, however, when US forest lands are viewed at the regional or local level. West of the Great Plains, less than 40% of forest land is privately owned; in the East, private forests constitute nearly 90% of the total (Powell et al., 1993). It has been estimated that habitat for nearly three-quarters of the federally listed threatened and endangered species in the US is found exclusively on private lands, much of it in the East (Natural Heritage Data Network, 1993). Conversely, some of the most productive forests, characterized by fast-growing, commercially desirable, native tree species, are found on public lands on the Pacific coast. A large-scale reallocation of public and private forest land aimed at placing important conservation lands in public ownership and highly productive forest lands in private hands would be operationally impractical, and politically infeasible. Some other mechanism is needed for aligning the management of forest lands with the uses to which they are naturally suited.
There have been several intensive efforts to identify forests of high conservation value, rank them in order of importance, and prioritize them in terms of degree of threat and need for immediate action to conserve biodiversity and other environmental values (Ricketts et al., 2000). A parallel process is needed to identify forest areas well-suited to intensive forest management, starting with a consensus approach to specifying a set of criteria and attributes for differentiating lands of relatively high value for sustainable wood production and relatively low value for biodiversity conservation. Preliminary efforts to accomplish this have met with public concerns that identifying and prioritizing such areas would be tantamount to declaring "sacrifice zones" in which there would be no attempt whatsoever to conserve biodiversity or protect other environmental values (Heaton, 2003). Existing requirements of federal and state law in the US already generally preclude such an approach. Nevertheless, voluntary efforts such as the recent Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification of a hybrid poplar plantation in Oregon (FSC, 2002) will provide additional public assurance that environmental values, including biodiversity conservation, can be protected in different ways at every point in the spectrum of forest management intensities. Conversely, continued efforts such as this could result in constructive modifications in guidelines for independent certification of forest plantations to comprise a set of "best practices" for intensive forest management.
We are perhaps within reach of a new political consensus - one in which both the forestry community and the environmental community actively support the idea that intensively managed forest plantations and protected areas in high conservation value forests have an essential place in a comprehensive strategy for sustainable forest management (Sample, 2003). It has been suggested (Binkley, 2003) that a consensus agreement might include considerations such as:
Developed, temperate-forest countries with high per capita consumption of wood products have a dual conservation responsibility to fulfil. First, there is an obligation to protect their remaining "hotspots" of biodiversity - and bear their share of the local, short-term economic effects of doing so. Second, there is an obligation to meet their share of the demand for renewable wood and fibre that they themselves generate, without shifting an undue burden onto biologically rich forests in other regions of the world. Taking a more specialized approach to forest management, and further developing the policies and institutional frameworks that make it possible to do so, creates significant potential for improving both biodiversity conservation and sustainable wood production.
Binkley, C.S. 2003. The environmental benefits of tree plantations. J. of Sust. For. In press.
FAO. 2000. Global outlook for the future wood supply from forest plantations. Rome.
Forest Stewardship Council. 2002. Forests certified by FSC-accredited certification bodies, Doc. 5.3.3. October 31, 2002. (also available at www.fscoax.org/principal.htm)
Heaton, K. 2003. The environmental and social impacts of intensive plantation forestry, J. of Sust. For. In press.
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1 President, Pinchot Institute for Conservation, 1616 P Street NW, Washington, DC 20036. [email protected]