Dear moderator,
the topic of forest-related indicators is very interesting.
Often, we explore C&I for SFM report (such as State of Europe’s Forests) when we have to make a report or congress presentation, but some information are not available or not easy to understand or not very clear (such protected areas, naturalness, regeneration, etc.).
In my opinion it could be fine to take into consideration some aspects, that often are useful for describing forest and forest management. For this reason, I would suggest to evaluate the possibility to include some of the follow indicators which still are not included in the Global core set:
- Forest mixture or tree specie composition;
- Extend of old growth forest (or forest which are not used since 50 years ago);
- Sylvicultural system adopted: % of different systems (e.g.: clear-cut system, seed tree system, shelterwood system, coppice system, selection system). This indicator could be very useful for describing how forests are managed and allow to evaluate in the temporal frame the variation among systems. The indicators have to refers to the amount of forest area available/harvested for timber production. This indicator will give also information about the vertical distribution of trees;
- Similarly, it could be interesting to have an indicator which reflect the forest management objective and which describe the extent of forest functions according their priority management at national level (e.g.: 85% productive; 4 % protective soil and water; 10% biodiversity; 1% recreational);
- Age structure and/or diameter distribution;
- Extent of forest area affected by illegal logging distinguished by natural events (e.g.: fire and other environmental damages) or human made ( e.g.: Weaknesses in forest governance);
- Finally, it could be very interesting, as regards the biodiversity, to have a value of the average abundance of tree-related microhabitat per hectare. I know that the last one is quite difficult and expensive to monitor, but it could be fine that forest policy will support the occurrence of particular ecological niches in order to support the conservation of forest biodiversity.
I hope that you can consider the possibility to include these indicators in the global set.
Best regards,
Giovanni
Giovanni Santopuoli
Natural Resources & Environmental Planning
Dip. Bioscienze e Territorio
Cda Fonte Lappone snc
86090 Pesche (IS)
Giovanni Santuopoli