Forest management
Forest management is a branch of forestry concerned with overall administrative, legal, economic, and social aspects, as well as scientific and technical aspects, such as silviculture, forest protection, and forest regulation. This includes management for timber, aesthetics, recreation, urban values, water, wildlife, inland and nearshore fisheries, wood products, plant genetic resources, and other forest resource values.[1] Management objectives can be for conservation, utilisation, or a mixture of the two. Techniques include timber extraction, planting and replanting of different species, building and maintenance of roads and pathways through forests, and preventing fire.
Many tools like remote sensing, GIS and photogrammetry[2][3] modelling have been developed to improve forest inventory and management planning.[4] Scientific research plays a crucial role in helping forest management. For example, climate modeling,[5][6][7] biodiversity research,[8][9] carbon sequestration research,[6][5][10] GIS applications,[8][11] and long-term monitoring[7][9] help assess and improve forest management, ensuring its effectiveness and success.
Aims[edit]
Some forests have been and are managed to obtain traditional forest products such as firewood, fiber for paper, and timber, with little thinking for other products and services. Nevertheless, as a result of the progression of environmental awareness, management of forests for multiple use is becoming more common.[14]
Forests provide a variety of ecosystem services: cleaning the air, accumulating carbon, filtering water, and reducing flooding and erosion.[15] Forests are the most biodiverse land-based ecosystem, and provide habitat for a vast array of animals, birds, plants and other life. They can provide food and material and also opportunities for recreation and education. Research has found that forest plantations “may result in reduced diversity and abundance of pollinators compared with natural forests that have greater structural and plant species diversity.”[16]
Forest certification is a globally recognized system for encouraging sustainable forest management and assuring that forest-based goods are derived from sustainably managed forests.[197][198][199] This is a voluntary procedure in which an impartial third-party organization evaluates the quality of forest management and output against a set of criteria established by a governmental or commercial certification agency.[200][201]
Growing environmental awareness and consumer demand for more socially responsible businesses helped third-party forest certification emerge in the 1990s as a credible tool for communicating the environmental and social performance of forest operations.
There are many potential users of certification, including: forest managers, scientists, policy makers, investors, environmental advocates, business consumers of wood and paper, and individuals.
With third-party forest certification, an independent standards setting organization (SSO) develops standards of good forest management, and independent auditors issue certificates to forest operations that comply with those standards. Forest certification verifies that forests are well-managed – as defined by a particular standard – and chain-of-custody certification tracks wood and paper products from the certified forest through processing to the point of sale.
This rise of certification led to the emergence of several different systems throughout the world. As a result, there is no single accepted forest management international standard worldwide. ISO members[202] rejected a proposal for a forestry management system as requirements standard, with a consensus that a management system for certification would not be effective. Instead ISO members voted for a chain of custody of wood and wood-based products with ISO 38200 published in 2018. Without an international standard each system takes a somewhat different approach with scheme owners defining private standards for sustainable forest management.
In its 2009–2010 Forest Products Annual Market Review United Nations Economic Commission for Europe/Food and Agriculture Organization stated: "Over the years, many of the issues that previously divided the (certification) systems have become much less distinct. The largest certification systems now generally have the same structural programmatic requirements."[203]
Third-party forest certification is an important tool for those seeking to ensure that the paper and wood products they purchase and use come from forests that are well-managed and legally harvested. Incorporating third-party certification into forest product procurement practices can be a centerpiece for comprehensive wood and paper policies that include factors such as the protection of sensitive forest values, thoughtful material selection and efficient use of products.[204]
Without a single international standard, there are a proliferation of private standards,[205] with more than fifty scheme owners offering certification worldwide, addressing the diversity of forest types and tenures. Globally, the two largest umbrella certification programs are:
The Forest Stewardship Council's Policy on Conversion states that land areas converted from natural forests to round wood production after November 1994 are ineligible for Forest Stewardship Council certification.[24][206]
The area of forest certified worldwide is growing slowly. PEFC is the world's largest forest certification system, with more than two-thirds of the total global certified area certified to its Sustainability Benchmarks.[207][208] In 2021, PEFC issued a position statement[209] defending their use of private standards in response to the Destruction: Certified report from Greenpeace.[210]
In North America, there are three certification standards endorsed by PEFC – the Sustainable Forestry Initiative,[211] the Canadian Standards Association's Sustainable Forest Management Standard,[212] and the American Tree Farm System.[213] SFI is the world's largest single forest certification standard by area.[214] FSC has five standards in North America – one in the United States[215] and four in Canada.[216]
While certification is intended as a tool to enhance forest management practices throughout the world, to date most certified forestry operations are located in Europe and North America. A significant barrier for many forest managers in developing countries is that they lack the capacity to undergo a certification audit and maintain operations to a certification standard.[217]