ABSTRACT

The latter part of the 20th Century was a period when there was a preoccupation with developing or negotiating standardized “cookie-cutter” approaches to forest management. This process was driven by civil society dissatisfied by the performance of forestry operators and by forestry agencies attempting to reflect the broader concerns of society. The last decade of the 20th Century saw the emergence of numerous sets of Criteria & Indicators defining a newer, broader, view of sustainable forest management. They addressed the multiple attributes of forests that needed to be the objects of modern forest management. “Model” approaches to forestry were promoted at an international level with strong impetus from Canada. These sought to replicate solutions to achieving balance between industrial forestry and environmental and social concerns that had worked in Canada and apply them elsewhere. Many development assistance projects sponsored “models” for sustainable, community or social forestry, seeking to promote broad adoption of approaches that had succeeded in one locality.