ABSTRACT
Managing forests for biodiversity conservation is part of a more general goal to maintain the diverse range of economic, social and environmental benefits that humans derive from forest ecosystems. This goal is commonly referred to as sustainable forest management (SFM) and has its foundations in the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environmental Development. Global commitment to SFM was reaffirmed by a resolution of the UN General Assembly in 2007 on the Sustainable Management of All Forest Types.
SFM is a subjective and evolving concept that should not be interpreted as a practical guide for management, but rather as a mechanism for creating a sense of community, connection and purpose, and a guiding vision for social and political discourse.
Ecologically responsible forest management draws upon the vision provided by SFM, and is based on implementing minimum practice standards to reduce biodiversity loss, while continuously striving to improve management performance with respect to long-term conservation goals.
Criteria and Indicators (C&I) are the foremost mechanism for defining responsible forest management and reporting on progress. Third party certification has been one of the most important policy developments in efforts to translate global-level C&I into auditable management standards that can be implemented within individual forest landscapes.
Management standards can be systems based, requiring the adoption of certain management practices in order to achieve compliance, or performance based, requiring the maintenance of certain forest attributes above minimum levels (irrespective of the method used). In practice, most management authorities use a combination of both approaches
