Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

Hello Kit 

Thanks for the opportunity to contribute to the discussion and development of the core set of indicators.  Development of a small set of core indicators will be very useful globally as we work towards the SDGs and also regionally and nationally as a mechanism to communicate key aspects of forests and forestry. 

The core set out for consultation build nicely on the foundations developed by various C&I processes such as Montreal Process, ITTO, Forest Europe and the UNFAO FRA. Keeping the number of indicators to a small number is important. A key point here is that the indicators should cover all important aspects of forests. My view currently is that the biophysical apsects of forests are very well covered. Social aspects less so.

My main point on the current proposed list is based around how we link forests to people, communities, other land uses and sectors. There are suggestions of this link in the draft list across a couple of indicators - relating for instance to employment numbers.

I think the people aspect of forests needs to be further considered.

I will give an example fo my thinking here. The Montreal Process has an indicator: 

6.5.b The importance of forests to people

Rationale: This indicator provides information on the range of values that communities and individuals hold for forests. These values shape the way people view forests, including their behaviours and attitudes to all aspects of forest management.

This is an attempt to capture some of the less tangible aspects of forest's values to communities - not just a forest community.

An example from New Zealand where I am based may help clarify the context. 28% of NZ land is in protected natural forests (Government owned), and 7% in commercial planetd forests (privately owned). The benefits of these forests is far wider than the forest sector and affects other land uses and also other sectors and industries.

The latest Hollywood movie - Alien Covenant draws heavily on New Zealand's natural environment as did the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies. Very significant value ($multi  million) accrued to the producers of these films from NZ's forests - this sort of intangible and indirect benefit or value needs to be recognised.

Much larger than this is the impact of forests and our natural environment on New Zealand's largest export sector - tourism. Billions of NZ$ accrue to NZ annually, Millions of tourists vsiit our forests, spend money on accomodation, transport, crafts and souvenirs.

Additionally forests provide many benefits to surrounding land uses - this is more the tradtional ecosystem services concept - clean water, fresh air, recreation etc. 

While payment for ecosystem services is recognised in the draft set of core indicators this indicator may be limited as there are many non market values associated with ES and PES is in its infancy generally. However there needs to be some way to reflect these values and discussion around the boundary for these values - we should not focus purely 'within' the forest we need to show the value fo the forests interaction much more widely. For example to evaluate the forests contribution to food security, tourism or even urban development.

So I think some further work and focus on how we incorporate these aspects within the core list will give long term benefiots and allow us to better work towards the SDGs and other sustainabilty goals where we need to consider issues holistically.

I look forward to continuing the discussions

Tim Payn

Adam van Opzeeland, in collaboration with colleagues from the Ministry for Primary Industries, New Zealand

We would like to thank Mr Kit Prince for his excellent work in drafting and developing these indicators, and commend the task force for their work in refining the set. It is pleasing to see the progress made, and the continued input from a range of stakeholders through the Ottawa meeting last year, the OLI meeting in Rome last November, and other international forests meetings.

Some general comments and questions:

• We are supportive of continued efforts to streamline reporting across forest fora, and identify this global core set of forest indicators as an excellent opportunity to advance these efforts.
• We caution against the “over-dilution” of indicators. Many of the indicators have been somewhat simplified by the refinement process. Although this allows for flexibility and country-specific circumstances, which is important, we also risk rendering the indicators to a state that lacks significance, ambition and usability.
• In many instances the “comments” section identifies further ways to break down the indicator when reporting (e.g. can use the IUCN categories for indicator 2) or a suggested unit or %, should this be reflected in the title of the indicator itself, or are we leaving this to the “explanatory note”?
• The explanatory notes will be important for the understanding of these indicators. This will be especially important for those in binary form (e.g. indicators 6, 7, 8, 13), and for those that, without a unit (e.g. %, ha), could be interpreted as a binary indicator.
• At the OLI in November it was acknowledged that the narrative to accompany these indicators will be important. Will this be prescribed within the core set, or will the option and nature of a narrative to accompany the indicator be the choice of the individual body to which the country is reporting?
• Using established, widely used and proven indicators as the basis for the core set is a sensible starting point.
• Ensuring that the SDG 15.2 indicators are a part of this set is both practical and important; the SDGs are a globally recognised platform and ensuring the international forests community’s alignment with them is important for the profile of forests for sustainable development and for the profile of individual forest bodies themselves. With the FAO being custodian of these SDG indicators, we can be confident that they will remain relevant and useful for the set. We should keep in mind that the SDG indicators are reviewed periodically, and that flexibility should be built into the core set to allow for changes of this nature over time.
• As well as the established indicators, it has been encouraging to see efforts to develop indicators for new and emerging issues or topics, and for those that have been around for some time yet do not have widely used or acknowledged indicators. The visibility and usability of a core set can allow for the advancement of conversations on these topics, and the best way to measure progress towards better management. It may be that the initial core set cannot accommodate all of these, but we do not want to see the discussions on these indicators go to waste. Having a system through which an ongoing dialogue can continue to address these issues or topics, and an opportunity for developing indicators to “graduate” to the core set, is encouraged.
• It was recognised at the OLI in Rome last year that socio-economic indicators for forests and for SFM are 1) very important and 2) in need of further discussion and development. Recognising and effectively measuring the interdependence between forests and people is also critical to the value proposition for intact forest systems. Socio-economic indicators should be well represented in this list, and are excellent examples of a (very broad) topic that should attract the aforementioned further development and “graduation” into the list over time.
• We join others in noting that the core set lacks specific indicators on biodiversity and ecosystem services (though indicator 4 is indirectly relevant). While noting that this core set is focused on forests and forestry, we also stress that 1) many CPF bodies’ mandates concern forests, but forests are not their central focus, and 2) even bodies primarily focused on forests and forestry are increasingly adopting an “integrated” approach, or cross-sectoral approach, to forest land management. Biodiversity and ecosystem services represent a wider consideration of both the ways in which forests interact with other land and water usages, and also the value of standing forests and their functions.
• The Montreal Process on Criteria and Indicators for the Conservation and Sustainable Management of Temperate and Boreal Forests (The Montreal Process) has, as one of its 5 criteria, the “conservation of biological diversity”. This criterion includes indicator sets on ecosystem diversity, species diversity, and genetic diversity. These can provide the basis for further indicators, or one robust and useful indicator on biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Some comments on individual proposed indicators:

Indicator 2: Have no problem with the removal of “legally established” but would prefer to keep the “%” from previous iteration and use recognised IUCN and CBD definitions of protected areas.

Indicator 3:Although this indicator is quantitative, narrative and explanation notes are still important to avoid perverse outcomes by maximising biomass (e.g. with fast growing plantations) at the expense of natural forests, or other inappropriate sites.

Indicator 4: This is similar to Montreal Process indicator 4.1.a, however we propose to change the first “and” to “or”. This better aligns with the Montreal Process indicator and allows for the inclusion of forest area that is managed for the protection of soil or water, but not necessarily as its primarily designated as land area for this purpose. It would then read “Forest area designated or managed for protection of soil and water”

Indicator 6: We acknowledge that effective SFM is contextual and a different challenge for different countries, and thus broadly support the inclusion of this indicator. We note that the inclusion of the deleted sections in the explanatory note is important (as is noted in the comments section), and that the note should acknowledge that this deleted section is a list of examples and that there are others beyond the list (i.e. please include “inter alia” to accommodate this). The indicator itself could be strengthened by inserting “ongoing implementation of” in place of “existence of”.

Indicators 7 and 8: Similar to Indicator 6, it would be good to see something in the title of the indicator that requires an ongoing process, and the improvement/strengthening of such a process. We support the retention of ‘scientifically sound’ in indicator 7.

Indicator 13: An indicator to address illegal logging is important, and we are pleased that the preferred indicator at this time is a policy based, rather than an outcome-based, indicator, as we know that reliable data are very hard to obtain, and what is considered legal is contextual. We also note that indicator 10 could be complemented by this indicator, adding chain of custody to forest certification.

Indicator 14: it could be useful to count the degree of forest disturbance/year and the causes, but it is difficult to attribute this to “forest health and vitality”, as some disturbance will have a positive effect on forest health, and some a negative, and in many cases this cannot be determined for longer time periods.

Indicator 18: the use of the wood once is harvested is beyond the scope of sustainable forest management, as forests should be managed when growing, and when harvested, in a legal and sustainable way regardless of end use. There could also be issues with what constitutes modern clean systems and put cost-barriers in place for traditional and low-income forest-dependent com

Indicator 19: This is an important topic but, as is noted in the comments, the indicator is not yet ready. As mentioned in our general comments above, there is a need for acknowledgement of ecosystem services from forests, and this is important for the value proposition of intact forests and forest systems, and forestry practises that nurture these.

Agree with removal of indicators 20 and 21: 20 is out of scope, and carbon (21) should be left to the work of the appropriate body (UNFCCC).

Finalising the list of core indicators

As a final comment, we are interested in clarifying the process for finalising the list of core indicators, and members states having final input. It was mentioned at the 12th Session of the United Nations Forum on Forests that the list would be finalised following the FRA expert consultation. Will members states be given the opportunity to review this list again, or an opportunity to approve the list before finalisation? When and where will the CPF task force present the final proposed list?

Dear colleagues,

Here my personal comments on Global Core Set of forest-related indicators with the focus on moderator's questions:

1) Is the global core set, as it stands in April 2017, sufficiently comprehensive, balanced and short to achieve its stated objectives? (The Global Core Set of forest-related indicators is intended to contribute to the following purposes:

1.To measure progress towards sustainable forest management (including SDG 15.2.1).

2.To measure progress in implementing the UN Forest Instrument and the UN Strategic Plan for Forests, notably the Global Objectives on Forests, and their associated targets.

3.To measure progress towards SDG targets other than 15.2.1, as well as internationally agreed goals on forests in other instruments notably through meeting the forest-related reporting needs of the Rio conventions.)

- I consider proposed set of indicators to be sufficient for reporting of SDG 15.2.1 as it covers its components (Forest area, Biomass stock, Protected areas located in forests, Forest area under forest management plan)

- To measure Global Forest Goals and their associated targets a specific system should be proposed or the list of indicators should be extended to cover 6 Global Forest Goals and all 26 associated targets. Proposed set covers GFGs 1-5, but does not cover all associated targets and GFG 6.

- To measure progress (contribution of forests and forestry sector) towards SDG targerts other than 15.2.1 should be further discussed and analysed.

 

2.If not, how should it be changed:

•Additional indicators? Please specify.

If there are 3 thematic objectives (SFM, UNSP, non SFM SDGs) of the core set, I would suggest to split and further develop this core set accordingly.

•Deletion of indicators? Please specify.

The same as above.

•Modification/reformulation of indicators? Please specify.

Provided below.

3.In particular, please provide suggestions for development of the indicators marked YELLOW – further work needed.

4-Forest area designated and managed for protection of soil and water - I support indicator as proposed.

5-Employment in forestry and logging - I suggest: Employment in forestry and forest industry/wood processing.

10-Forest area under an independently verified forest management certification scheme - I suggest: To complement this indicator with the indicator Area of forests available for wood supply.

12-Volume of wood removals - I support indicator as proposed.

In addition I suggest: Volume of increment.

13-Existence of a traceability system for wood products - I support indicator as proposed.

14-Forest health and vitality: % of forest area disturbed - I support indicator as proposed.

15-Percentage change in area of degraded forest - I suggest: Area of degraded forest land.

In addition, I suggest indicator: Area of restored degraded forests/Degraded area restored by afforestation.

16-a. Percentage change in the number of forest dependent people or b. Livelihoods of forest dependent people - I suggest to remove both variants due to difficulty of data collection as well as interpretation.

17-Financial resources from all sources (except ODA) for the implementation of sustainable forest management ($/ha of forest) - I support indicator as proposed.

18-Share of wood based energy in total primary energy consumption, of which in modern clean systems (%) - I suggest: Wood based energy, of which produced in modern clean systems (%), Total primary energy production.

19-Value of payments for ecosystem services (PES) related to forests (value of payments, as ratio to total forest area or area of forest covered by such PES)- I suggest: Value of payments for ecosystem services (PES) related to forests and area of associated forests

20-Recovery rates for paper and solid wood products (volume recovered for re-use as % of volume consumed) - I suggest to remove if not specifically relevent for any target.

21-Carbon stocks and carbon stock changes in forest land: net forest GHG sink/source of forests, forest carbon stock, carbon storage in harvested wood products (Tons C) - I suggest to use directly figures reported under UNFCCC/KP.

I also suggest additional indicators highly relevant for SFM:

Naturalness: % Undisturbed by man; Semi-natural; Plantations

Genetic resources: Area managed for in situ gene conservation; Area managed for ex situ gene conservation; Area managed for seed production

Thanks for the oportunity to comment. I look forward to cooperate on the theme.

Best regards,

Rastislav

Dear Kit and team

Thanks for sharing and encouraging input and discussions on this vital area.

Many of my comments / questions might not be relevant as I missed the earlier steps in the process - where my questions will likely have been addressed. I also was slightly confused as many of the # I see more as being research topics rather than indicators of SFM - I think that my confusion is more based on my lack of background on this work though.

#2. "Forest within protected areas" I wholeheartedly agree that efforts should be made to break down into IUCN categories. 

#5. "Employment in forestry and logging". I realise this is in FAO FRA but am not 100% clear for what this is an indicator? Also why especially emphasise logging? Could change to forestry and forest industry? 

#11. "ODA for SFM" again am not clear on what this is an indicator for? Less ODA is a sign that a country is more sustainably managing its forests? What about countries that are doing such a poor job that they get little ODA? 

#16.  Forest dependent people. Again this would be an indicator of what? Are we seeing that decrease in number of forest dependent people is good... or bad? similar issue with "livelihoods of forest dependent people" increase or decrease is an indicator of? 

Could we also consider indicators of area under community forestry (smallholder and communal) compared to that under State management?  Could we also look at the rights that are under CF types (e.g. bundle of rights)? 

Thanks again for this opportunity and hope my thoughts have been relevant.

David

Contributions on behafl of National Forestry Commission and Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources are attached.

This is a step in the right direction as, indeed, this work will further contribute to the reduction of overlaps in data collection/reporting burden and will enhance the consistency of forest data. The current set fulfils the purpose of providing input for SDG Indicator 15.2.1: “Progress towards sustainable forest management” – as it contains all five “sub indicators” included under .15.2.1.

It will also support monitoring progress towards Global Forest Goals (GFG)/targets of the UN Strategic Plan for Forests and SDGs/targets other than 15.2 – although, to a lesser extent. E.g.:

GFG2: Enhance forest-based economic, social and environmental benefits, including by improving the livelihoods of forest dependent people, contains 5 targets:

2.1 Extreme poverty for all forest dependent people is eradicated.

2.2 Increase the access of small-scale forest enterprises, in particular in developing countries, to financial services, including affordable credit, and their integration into value chains and markets.

2.3 The contribution of forests and trees to food security is significantly increased.

2.4 The contribution of forest industry, other forest-based enterprises and forest ecosystem services to social, economic and environmental development, among others, is significantly increased.

2.5 The contribution of all types of forests to biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation and adaptation is enhanced, taking into account the mandates and ongoing work of relevant conventions and instruments.

Indicator 16 of the core set, which still needs to be developed, will help measuring progress towards target 2.1; however, support for measuring other targets is less clear. This need for indicators/data gap is related not only to GFG2, but also to other SDGs - beyond SDG 15 and, in general, to measuring the contribution of forest to sustainable development. We, as forest community, always state and communicate the “importance” of forests to e.g. food security or poverty eradication; however, we still lack solid data/evidence for these statements. It is not an easy area of work, methodologies for specific indicators are still needed. We do need to enhance data availability and quality and build capacity for all this. However, these are the reporting requirements that could help to demonstrate the full benefits coming from forests. Thus, we strongly support further work, as needed, on Indicator 16 and, if possible, considering adding an indicator that could help measuring progress towards contribution of forests to food security: GFG2, target 2.3 and SDG3.

thank you very much for providing the opportunity to comment,

Tomasz

From: John Hontelez, Chief Advocacy Officer, Forest Stewardship Council.

I thank FAO and its CPF partners for this opportunity to give feedback.

FSC is pleased to see that forest certification is now proposed as one of the 13 indicators.

I would like to respond to the observations made in the Explanatory note.

The problem of double accounting. We appreciate that. Two months ago, FSC and PEFC have agreed to work together to providing information about double certification, country by country, on an annual basis. Next week we will publish a list for the end of 2016 with figures for the 28 countries where this occurs. The total area of double certification in the world is 68 million ha, or 16% of the 429 million ha certified. We have estimations for 2012 to have a historical starting point. We would like to discuss with the governments in the 28 countries and FAO on how to incorporate our findings in the reporting on SFM.

Certification not an official policy instrument: on the one hand: several goverments do use forest certification as policy instrument, in particular in countries where governments own forests. On the other hand: which of the other indicators proposed are part of official policies in all/most countries?

Not all sustainably managed forests are certified: that is obviously true, and it is good that the set of indicators, includes another one that approaches the issue differently (nr. 9). But that indicator is not necessarily better: it does not guarantee a certain quality of management plans nor their systematic application in practice. Forest certification has the advantage that it is clearly defined and guarantees a certain level of performance. It is also a positive message to society, including the forest industry and consumers, to see that forest certification is recognised as a valid indicator for SFM: because the connected chain-of-custody and labelling standards can encourage SFM through creating demand.

Dear colleagues

Dear Kit

We found the work done so far very interesting and we understand the need to have a limited number of indicators, specially for communication purposes and we are glad to contribute to the process.

In our view, and as a general comment, it seems that, as the UNSPF/UNFF) has 6 Global Forest Goals and 26 associated targets, there is a somehow unbalanced approach in relation to the SFM criteria - Biodiversity shoud be reinforced and “non-wood forest products” should also be introduced.

As an overall comment to the indicators, there should be a coherent line  in relation to the use of percentage in their designation.

On specific indicators:

Ind. 5 – “Employment in forestry and logging” seems that excludes industry, which is also relevant and we concider that logging is included in “forestry”.

Ind. 7 – important to retain in the explanatory note that it "includes NFI and related information and monitoring systems".

Ind. 10 – we share the view concerning “certification and certified area”, as certification isn’t an official policy instrument and rather a market driven voluntary tool.

Ind. 13 – not clear what is expected concerning “traceability” in this context. Does EU Timber Regulation respond to this?

Ind.14 – “Forest health and vitality“ is the designation of the criterion, not of the indicator. This indicator should use FRA references, although the Forest Europe indicator2.4 (forest damage) seems appropriate and describes better what is included here.

Ind.15 – we agree that it is very unclear how to assess forest degradation, due to the difficulty to answer the basic question of how to define it. Degradation is linked to cover loss, carbon stock loss, biodiversity loss. It is, in fact, a “combined indicator” . Need for a baseline year, if expressed in “percentage change”.

Ind. 16 – how to define? we doubt there are available sources for assessing “forest dependent people” or “livelihoods”.

Ind. 17 – as for previous indicators don’t use “$/ha of forest”. “All sources” means private and public, as included in the GFG4 - 4.2) but we recognize that most of the private sources are difficult to estimate.

Ind. 18 – consumption or supply? Forest Europe indicator 6.9 uses supply. “modern clean systems ” is ambiguous and complicated to define.

Ind. 20 - we agree it can be deleted.

Continuation of the good work.

Conceição Ferreira

ICNF, Ministry of Agriculture, Portugal

English translation below

Je voudrais vous soumettre trois (3) indicateurs issus des forêts à analyser dont entre autre:

- Huile rouge

un produit issu des palmiers et une production exploitée par les communauté en grande partie qui rentre dans l'alimentation.

-Noix de cola

le colatier produit des noix de cola qui sont presque utilisé en Afrique tout entière, issus des plantations forestières, c'est un élément qui rentre également dans l’alimentions et la décoration des pagnes de la forêts sacrée .

- le Karité est l'unique espèce connu du genre vitelaria qui appartient à la famille des Sapotacée, ses noix sont utilisées pour fabriquer du beurre de karité  est extrait des fruits du karité arbre poussant uniquement à l’état sauvage dans les savanes arborés de l'Afrique et utilisé pour l'alimentation

Ces trois éléments permettez moi de les analysés et à les affecter à des indicateurs correspondants

Abraham Santigui KEITA

Point Focal du FNUF Guinée-Conakry

I would like to submit three (3) indicators derived from forests for analysis, as follows:

- Red oil

A product derived from palms whose production is principally exploited by communities for food.

- Cola (Kola) nut

The cola tree produces the cola nut which is used over almost all of Africa, derived from forest plantations; it is an element that is part of the diet as well as being used on loincloths decorated with sacred forest subjects.

- The shea nut is the only known species belonging to the Vitellaria genre, which belongs to the family of the Sapotaceae. The nuts are used to make shea butter, extracted from the fruit of the shea tree which grows exclusively in the wild in the African savannah and which is used for food.

These three elements are amenable to analysis and to assignment of their corresponding indicators.

Abraham Santigui KEITA

Focal Point of UNFF [United Nations Forum on Forestry] Guinea-Conakry

Dear Mr. Prins,

thank you for creating some more time for input into this discussion. I will react on one of your questions:

Should we have an indicator on wood energy?  (It is not actually mentioned in the high level commitments.  SDG 7.2.1 refers to renewable energy as whole.)

yes the SDG only looks at renewable energy as a whole, however wood is the most important renewable energy source world wide and its use is in many cases not sustainable (1/3 of world consumption).

I also agree with the previous comment that wood used for energy is one product and yes potentially, if we monitor the sustainability of the ressource we should cover it all. However wood energy consumption is highly influenced by renewable energy policies or the (non-)existence of bioenergy policies and this can increase or decrease the consumption accordingly. Decisions on how much wood for energy consumption will be needed depend highly on decisions made in the energy sector (if they are made or monitored). In many cases the question of demand and supply of energy wood is falling between the chairs, since the forestry sector only monitors the management of the ressource and the energy sector monitors how much energy is consumed from which source and what the emissions from its use are (and here often wood is considered as renewable, no matter whether it is harvested sustainably or not). There is often not much dialogue between the two sectors. Considering that 50% of wood harvested worldwide is used for energy (with a potential to increase, since the demand is projected by IEA to increase) an indicator that looks into a dialogue and matchmaking between the forest and the energy sector seems relevant to me. Especially since any decision made in the energy sector will have an effect on the availability of the resource or alternatively will have an effect on the profitability of producing energy wood/ using wood residues from sustainable management practices for energy. So potentially an indicator related to the availability of energy wood demand and supply would serve the purpose?

But maybe this is something that does not need to be monitored on the global level, but rather on the national level or incorporated in any forestry policy on the national/regional level.

Best regards,

Conny Ehlers