This is a great start to a global set of core forest indicators. It is quite a challenge to find a list that is comprehensive, balance and short – the desired outcome expressed at the experts’ workshop held in Ottawa in May 2016 and at the Organization-Led Initiative workshop held in Rome in November 2016.
As a starting point, therefore, I thought about how I might reduce the list to be closer to the desired number of 12-15 essential indicators, while still being balanced among the accepted Criteria of established Criteria and Indicators Processes and aligned, as much as possible, with other existing reporting needs. In this way, global discussions on sustainable forest management are aided by increased consistency of information among countries and across reporting processes. Also, countries will be better able to respond to the many and varied requests they receive for information about their forests. I have articulated a possible list below (note that I have reordered the indicators so that similar or related indicators are closer together in the list).
- Forest area
- Forest area within protected areas
- Forest area designated and managed for protection of soil and water
- Forest area under a long-term forest management plan
- forest area disturbed (including natural and anthropogenic disturbance)
- Existence of scientifically sound national forest assessment process
- Above-ground biomass stock in forest OR total growing stock
- Volume of wood removals
- number of forest dependent people
- Employment in forestry and logging
- Value of payments for ecosystem services (PES) related to forests OR value of forest products produced
- Existence of policies supporting SFM
- Existence of a national mechanism to secure multistakeholder participation in the development and implementation of forest-related policies
Generally, the task force that worked on this list of indicators has well described the technical challenges with the indicators. Below, I provide additional comments on the individual indicators, using the order in which they were presented in documents provided to this forum.
Forest area as proportion of total land area
The indicator “forest area” is preferred to the indicator “forest area as a proportion of total land area”. “Forest Area” is already widely reported, can be tracked over time for many individual countries, and would allow readers to easily calculate useful proportions for other area-based indicators in this list (e.g. forest area in protected areas) relative to the total forest area. Forest area as a proportion of land area can be readily calculated by readers as needed.
Forest area within protected areas
The current wording is fine in as much as it is easily reported. However, calculating the proportion relative to the total forest area (as suggested in the comments from the TF meeting) will require extra calculations if the first indicator is the proportion of forest relative to total land.
This indicator may not adequately capture important aspects of species diversity. Indicators such as the number of forest-associate species at risk or the number of forest-associated species extinctions could be considered.
Above-ground biomass stock in forest
Having some idea of total volume to measure removals against is useful. Growing stock of commercial species might be more useful in this regard than total above ground biomass, but may be more difficult to measure by all countries. Changes in biomass have to be reported in context of the countries circumstances to tell a story. A massive shift to intensive plantations might increase a country’s biomass, but what does that mean for sustainability?
Forest area designated and managed for protection of soil and water
All of the C&I processes include criteria on soils and water, so it’s important to include a relevant indicator in the core set. This indicator’s similarity to a GFRA indicator means that many countries likely can report on this indicator using established definitions.
Employment in forestry and logging
An important indicator. The current wording is a big improvement over the original suggested wording about the number of jobs per 1000 ha of forest. However, it would be useful to see the definition of employment expanded to beyond the current FAO definition to include those who work in saw mills and pulp and paper mills.
Existence of a national mechanism to secure multistakeholder participation in the development and implementation of forest-related policies
This indicator is fine, as long as it recognizes that in some countries, forest management is conducted at the sub-national level, and that the “national” mechanism may in fact be a series of sub-national mechanisms that cover the country.
Forest area under a long-term forest management plan
The indicator is fine as worded, but a definition of “long-term” is required
Existence of a traceability system for wood products
This may be too indirect to serve as a good indicator of illegal logging
Forest health and vitality: % of forest area disturbed
Simplifying this indicator to “forest area disturbed” would make it more it more comparable with other area-based indicators. Similarly, the proportion of forest disturbed could be calculated by readers if an indicator of total forest area is included in the set. Also, the term “forest health and vitality” should be removed. Other indicators do not possess prefaces like this, and it may lead to misunderstandings that forest disturbance is always negative for forests. In boreal and temperate forests, some level of disturbance is necessary for proper ecosystem functioning. Clarity will be needed on which disturbance types/intensities shall be included
Share of wood based energy in total primary energy consumption, of which in modern clean systems (%)
Wood energy is one product of many produced from the forest. Once the wood is harvested, the type of product it is turned into is not really relevant to whether the forest was managed sustainably or not.
Value of payments for ecosystem services (PES) related to forests
Forests have value beyond wood products and they are managed for multiple values - e.g. ecosystem services, like purifying water, stabilizing land, etc. However, as noted by the task force, the concepts are poorly defined and measurement would be a problem. Consider replacing it with an indicator on value of wood products - granted it is not as comprehensive as ecosystem services, but it is globally reportable.
Thanks for the opportunity to comment.
Simon Bridge
M. Simon Bridge