From Rio to Johannesburg: Ten Years of Progress in Forest Conservation?
Rorke Bryan
Faculty of Forestry
University of Toronto
Toronto, ON
I would like to start with a brief disclaimer. I was not trained as a forester and, coming from a country which was almost completely deforested by Celtic agriculturalists before 2500 BC, I was nearly 30 years old before I first saw anything that most of the people in this room would recognize as a forest. I am, nevertheless, totally convinced of the social, economic and environmental importance of global forests and regard the multiple threats to their future survival as among the most critical issues facing the human race. I have been actively involved in international development, primarily in East Africa and Mexico, for about 25 years, and it was through the demands of international development that I became actively involved in forestry in 1994.
The theme of this year’s Starker Lectures is “Forests and Environmental Sustainability. It is about 15 years since the report of the Brundtland Commission, Our Common Future, introduced the term “sustainable development” and pointed out the environmental foundation essential for any form of development which claims to be sustainable. The Brundtland Commission also emphasized two other fundamental issues: first, that societal development and environmental protection are globally connected and attempts to achieve sustainable development of any region in isolation from the remainder of the globe are futile; second, that sustainable development and societal equity are closely linked and attempts to achieve sustainable development without achieving equitable access to and use of environmental resources cannot be successful. The Brundtland Commission was not a group of hairy, wild-eyed radicals, but a sober, rather conservative, intensely practical and realistic group, led by one former prime minister and including two more. This is perhaps why its views carried so much weight. I clearly remember the publication of Our Common Future and the intense public interest and debate it stimulated, at least in Canada. One of the most tangible results, and the one which most directly affected forestry, was the 1992 United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro. As it is now 10 years since the Rio “Earth Summit,” it is highly appropriate to examine what progress, if any, has been made, and to consider whether our present trajectory will lead to our sustainable, equitable development.
In the context of forest conservation, I want to address several issues: what progress has been made in changing the international structures necessary for the protection of global forests; what progress has been made in changing the structures and policies which affect forest management; what progress, if any, has been made in the protection of global forests; and, finally, how adequate is our forest policy and management framework to conserve and sustainably manage the boreal forest, particularly in Ontario, which is a significant part of this last largely intact global forest ecosystem.
A number of environmental crises contributed to the establishment of the Brundtland Commission, two of the most important of which were forest issues: the spread of deserts in the sub-Saharan dry lands of Africa, and the uncontrolled destruction of the Amazonian rain forest. Forest protection was a major focus of interest at Rio, and inability to achieve the planned international convention on forest management was unquestionably a major failure. However, the renegotiation of the convention to combat desertification, and the agreements on a convention on biological diversity and on a framework convention on climate change, all had implications for forests, and UNCED did compromise on a set of forest principles, officially called “the non-legally binding authoritative statement of principles for a global consensus on the management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests” (Figure 1). UNCED also called for sustaining the multiple roles and functions of forests, enhancing their protection, sustainable management and conservation, recovery of the full valuation of goods and services from forests, and strengthening capacities for monitoring and assessment of forests and related activities. Collectively these initiatives were much less than the binding convention sought by some countries, including Canada, but they were sufficient to stimulate intensive international negotiation over the next decade toward this goal. These negotiations continued under the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development as the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests from 1995 to 1997, the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests from 1997 to 2000, and now the United Nations Forum on Forests.
Despite this activity, the overall goal of a comprehensive, binding international convention is still elusive, and the obstacles encountered in ratifying the Kyoto Protocol provide little cause for optimism that it will be achieved in the near future. However, there has been some progress, particularly in reaching some international consensus on the meaning of sustainable forest management and the objective criteria and indicators to assess it. This is obviously an important step to ensure a level playing field if there is ultimately to be an international binding convention on sustainable forest management, accompanied by legally enforceable sanctions.
I do not intend to inflict on you the alphabet soup of commissions, treaties, declarations, and principles which have characterized the last decade of international discussions about criteria and indicators, but I will just mention briefly some milestones (these are discussed in detail by Grayson and Maynard 1997). The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) was the first group to address this issue, introducing 41 principles to administer the International Tropical Timber Agreement, with guidelines for conservation of biological diversity in tropical production forests, for establishment and sustainable management of plantations, and for the sustainable management of natural forests. The Helsinki Process, in 1994, identified a core set of 6 criteria and 19 indicators for sustainable management and biological diversity maintenance in European forests. This was paralleled by the more detailed Montreal Process, which in 1995 produced 7 criteria and 67 indicators for temperate and boreal forests. Many other sets of criteria and indicators were proposed by, for example, the Amazon Cooperation Treaty at Tarapato, the African Timber Organization, the Lepaterique Process for Central America, and FAO/UNEP expert meetings for dry-zone Africa and for the Near East. Although all these processes differ in their details, reflecting the circumstances of particular forest regions, they all converge on seven internationally agreed criteria (Figure 2). The intention is that these criteria should be applied at international, national, regional and, of course, local forest management unit levels, but obviously the indicators used at each level will be different.
There are many ongoing international consultations on criteria and indicators, and some progress has been made in linking these to national initiatives. For example, in Canada, a pre-Rio initiative, the Canada Forest Accord provided a framework for action on 11 issues or criteria. The accord was signed by all federal and provincial ministers responsible for forests, together with heads of industry and of wildlife, aboriginal, professional, and educational associations. The accord was further developed by the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers, which initiated a National Forest Strategy (NFS) in 1992 to promote progress towards sustainable forest management. This strategy was later linked to the Montreal Process with a framework of 6 criteria and 83 indicators (Figure 3). The NFS has just reached the end of its initial term and is currently being evaluated in preparation for a second 10-year term. In New Zealand, the Forest Accord, an agreement among five forest industry and environmental organizations, provided a similar framework, which among other measures introduced very significant limitations on harvesting of any natural indigenous forest vegetation.
International and national initiatives are necessary, but it is, of course, the local forest management unit level that is critical for sustainable forest management. Progress in field testing criteria and indicators at this level has been very limited. The Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) initiated field testing, with an initial set of 1100 indicators at sites in Germany, Austria, Indonesia, Cote d’Ivoire, Brazil, and Cameroon, which ultimately resulted in a series of guidelines and computerized assessment tools. CIFOR followed this by field testing in North America, which resulted in a set of 17 criteria and 57 indicators for use in temperate forests. In Canada, the most recent progress has been field testing of a slight modification of this C & I set, with 16 criteria and 58 indicators at Haliburton Forest, some 200 km north of Toronto (Mrosek 2002) (Figure 4). This test was designed to (1) assess the feasibility of collecting information on chosen indicators, either using existing data or, where necessary, carrying out field studies to provide relevant data, (2) assess the relevance and appropriate weighting of different indicators in achieving sustainability, (3) examine the utility of the process for the forest manager in providing a current assessment and guidance for future improvement. To summarize the conclusions very briefly, it was shown that the process could help forest managers in assessment and guidance for improvement, and that some indicators were certainly more relevant to forest conservation than others. The study revealed the need for a weighting process--for example, indicator 1.2.2,“area of vegetation type, structural classes relative to historical condition and total forest area,” is highly relevant, while indicator 3.5.2,“forest management cooperates with public health authorities concerning forest-related illnesses,”is more marginal, at least in this forest. However, the most troubling conclusion was that even in this ideal circumstance--a private forest managed by a highly committed, qualified, and interested forest manager--it was impossible to collect all the necessary data in a study extending over nearly 4 years. This raises serious questions about the feasibility of applying criteria and indicators over very extensive forest areas under much less favorable circumstances.
The sequence of international consultations and the criteria and indicator initiatives which I have summarized represent the epitome of top-down attempts to achieve global forest conservation and sustainable forest management by national and international governmental regulatory action. There are those who would regard these as being governed by the “Nero Principle,” otherwise known as “fiddling while Rome burned,” particularly the environmental, aboriginal, and industrial representatives who also attended the Rio conference. These players emerged from the process with a high level of frustration about the absence of tangible progress. Out of this frustration, and out of doubts about the will and capacity of governments to implement sustainable forest management, emerged a different approach. Essentially, it involved environmental and industry groups collaborating to bypass government by harnessing consumer preference and market power through environmental labeling--in this case forest certification.
Forest certification is based two premises: that environmentally responsible consumers will express their support for forest conservation by preferentially purchasing products certified as coming from sustainably managed forests; and that added revenue from premium prices or increased market share would provide incentives for producers to improve forest management practices. The idea of forest certification was born at a conference in Toronto in 1993, which resulted in the formation of the Forest Stewardship Council, since based at Oaxaca in Mexico. The FSC does not certify forest products directly, but controls the use of the FSC logo on products through sustainable forest management assessment by independent auditors. Assessment is based on ten principles, which are interpreted through regional guidelines developed for different parts of the world.
Forest certification attracted a great deal of attention and controversy in the forest sector, particularly in Canada, because of our dependence on the export of forest products. Over the ensuing 9 years, many competing certification systems have been proposed in different parts of the world. Each has somewhat different approaches, advantages, and disadvantages, and each has ardent supporters and opponents, often resulting in a considerable level of acrimony. Shortly after the Faculty of Forestry at Toronto joined the FSC in 1996 (I suspect we were the first faculty of forestry in the world to do so), I received an irate letter from a senior, respected member of the forestry community in Ontario and a former member) of the Faculty, berating me for my irresponsibility. I am still not quite sure whether I was being taken to task because I was supporting certification, or because I was supporting a rival to the industry-driven Canadian Standards Association (CSA) system. Numerous discussions aimed at integrating competing systems and approaches have occurred, so far without result.
In this confusing, rapidly changing situation, it was unclear until very recently whether certification would prove to be a useful contribution to forest protection. However, in the past few years, there has been tangible progress. First, the array of competing systems has declined, and five dominant systems seem to be emerging. They are FSC, CSA, ISO 14001, the Pan-European Forest Certification (PEFC) in Europe, and the Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFI) in the United States. It now seems more likely that a single global standard will eventually emerge. Initially it was very unclear whether or not forest industries would become involved in certification, and, if so, whether they would reap real financial benefits. The evidence for a real consumer premium is still scant, particularly in North America, but the situation has been transformed by recent commitments made to certification by major home improvement retailing organizations such as Home Depot, IKEA, and B and Q in England. Home Depot, for example, has committed to accepting only FSC certified products within the next 18 months.
Even if the consumer premium has proven unrealistic, the market power of retail organizations can be decisive, and the forest products industry, at least in Canada and most of Europe, has accepted certification as a simple cost of doing business, essential to protecting or increasing market share. Most major forest industries in Canada are now either certified or are actively seeking certification. Most use ISO 14001, but many seek multiple certification, and several of the largest and most progressive, such as Tembec and Domtar, are FSC-certified, at least for some of their woodlands operations. This has greatly stimulated the pressure for certification, and globally there are now approximately 150 million hectares of certified forest land, 30 million through FSC and 120 million through other systems. However, it is important to note that area and volume are not interchangeable, and the amount of certified wood reaching the market is still quite inadequate to meet the demand. At present it is by no means clear that Home Depot’s commitment to accept only FSC-certified wood can be fulfilled.
To summarize very briefly, although the discussions over the past decade have been tortuous and labyrinthine, I think that we can say that there has been significant progress in establishing some the national and international institutions and policies necessary to protect and sustainably manage global forests. Although an international forestry convention still appears remote, there is a large measure of agreement on the criteria and indicators which should be used, even though the acquisition of the data necessary for assessment is really problematic and certainly requires some serious commitment to the establishment of long-term monitoring sites. In this context, the model forest network, initiated in Canada, is very promising. Canada now has ten model forests spread across the country, and more have recently been established internationally. Progress with certification is also promising, and I am confident that it is now here to stay as a significant market factor. I believe that we will see considerable unification of the dominant five systems in the next 5 years, or at least agreement on mutual recognition.
I would now like to consider whether the progress which has been made in policy and institutional structures has been matched by significant improvement in the international protection of forests. Here the picture is much less rosy. It is, of course, very difficult to obtain consistent reliable data which integrate many studies using different methodologies over different time periods, and often using somewhat different definitions of forests. The best available information comes from a major 5-year study, the Global Forest Resources Assessment 2000, carried out by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO 2001), which is based on integration of country survey information with remote sensing data. The assessment involved some reclassification of earlier data to accommodate consistent forest definitions. It shows a total global forest area of 3,869 million hectares, of which 47% is tropical, 33% boreal, 11% temperate, and 9% subtropical. Ninety-five per cent of the forest area is either natural or semi-natural; nearly two-thirds of the natural or semi-natural forest is located in 10 countries. About the same percentage of the 187 million hectares of plantation forests lie in four countries, China, India, Russia, and the United States. The really critical figures, however, are the changes between 1990 and 2000, which include losses by deforestation, conversion from natural forest to plantations, and gains from afforestation (Table 1, Table 2). The annual global net change over the decade was -9.4 million hectares. The loss of 12.3 million hectares in tropical areas was partially counterbalanced by a gain of 2.9 million hectares in non-tropical areas, particularly China. By far the most serious trend, however, is the dramatic reduction in the area of natural forest, particularly in the tropics, where the annual loss was 15.2 million hectares, or nearly 4% of the natural forest area over the decade. Clearly this trend is absolutely unsustainable and would lead to total elimination of natural tropical forests in about 250 years. This figure is, of course, an average and obscures very much higher rates of natural forest loss in some areas. For example, for fifteen of the most seriously affected countries in Africa (Table 1), the average annual rate of forest loss over the decade was 3%, which, if maintained, would lead to total loss of forest in 33 years. The situation is almost as bad in Central America, where the annual rate of loss is 2.6% (Table 2). These figures alone indicate a catastrophic rate of decline in natural forest cover, with immense social and economic implications for some of the poorest countries in the world. These are countries in which a very high percentage of the population is directly dependent on forests and subsistence agriculture for domestic fuel, housing, and livelihood. Indeed, it is this dependence which is primarily responsible for the rate of deforestation. The environmental implications in terms of loss of wildlife, biodiversity, and habitat; soil degradation, and loss of watershed protection are equally serious. However, the data reveal only a part of the problem. In most of the African countries cited, the remaining forest consists largely of scrubby, open forest where as little as 10% of the land cover may consist of trees. Only a small amount is closed- canopy forest, so the real life expectancy for such forests is much shorter. For example, the rate of loss in Uganda could eliminate closed-canopy natural forest within 5 years.
Even these figures give only a minimal estimate of the real situation, for even the forests that remain are far from intact and are suffering significant reduction in effective function because of fragmentation associated with road construction and mineral exploration. Not only does this fragmentation cause significant microclimatic changes in the remaining fragments, which seriously affect the survival of wildlife, but the newly opened roads provide access for illegal logging and hunting and have contributed to the bush-meat crisis that has decimated mammal populations in many southern countries in the last few years. In the light of this situation, the last decade’s progress in international forest policies and institutions appears marginal and unimpressive. Even if some of the data are of dubious, there seems little doubt that the situation of global forests now is substantially worse than it was in 1992. The FAO analysis of pre- and post-Rio patterns of forest loss indicates that all the international activities directed towards forest protection since the Rio conference have made virtually no difference to the worldwide rate of natural-forest loss.
In the remaining time I would like to turn to some critical forest conservation issues in Ontario, particularly with regard to the boreal forest zone. We have seen that the boreal forest represents a highly significant proportion, about one third, of the total remaining global forest cover. About one-quarter of the boreal forest, 214 million hectares, lies in Canada, and 70 million ha in Ontario where it makes up nearly half the provincial area (Figure 5). The Canadian boreal forest includes a large portion of the world’s remaining tracts of intact forest. It provides habitat for important migratory species, contains significant stores of carbon, and plays a key role in protection of much of the surface water of North America. Much of the boreal forest outside Canada has either already been intensely affected by harvesting, as in northern Sweden and Finland, or is at present experiencing rapid exploitation, as in Russia. We are acutely aware in Ontario of the fact that the way we choose to manage our boreal forest zone has global implications and may well determine the future survival of this major forest biome.
Although Canada still has a large amount of forest cover--over 400 million hectares, covering close to half our total land area--most of it has been impacted in some way by human activity. Data from Global Forest Watch, collected by the World Resources Institute (2000), show that, in 2000, 62% of the forest area fell within a harvesting tenure or within 10 kilometers of a road, mine, settlement, or hydroelectric dam. Road development is particularly important because of its impact on wildlife movement patterns, access for hunting, and the effect of access on the incidence of forest fires. In addition, within the forest regions of Canada there are 196 active mines, 5,476 abandoned mines, 1,100 hydroelectric developments, and 4,045 settlements. By far the most serious impact is in the most diverse and productive forests of southern Canada, such as the Carolinian forest of southern Ontario and Quebec. This forest type has 92 indigenous tree species, compared with the boreal forest 500 kilometers to the north, which has only 10. Many of these species, such as the tulip tree, are right at the northern edge of their natural range, and some are endangered or have been extirpated. Sixty-two per cent of the Carolinian forest has been cleared for agriculture or other land use, and 98% is classified as accessed and so has lost much of its natural function. The largest intact fragment of Carolinian forest is, in fact, in the Koffler Scientific Reserve at Jokers Hill, in suburban Toronto, owned by the University of Toronto. The forested area of the Reserve covers only about 200 hectares.
The significance of forest fragmentation is that it is only in unfragmented forests that the full natural range of forest ecological processes can take place. The threshold unfragmented area necessary to maintain the full suite of processes and species varies with forest type, ranging from 200 square kilometers for East Coast forests to about 10,000 square kilometers for the boreal forest. It is only in the northern part of the boreal and taiga (the figures cited above include both the true boreal forest and the taiga forest farther north) that unfragmented forest blocks larger than 10,000 square kilometers still exist.
The issues currently facing us in Ontario are whether, how, and when we should permit any development of these northern boreal areas. Although substantial areas of the southern boreal in Ontario have not been yet been harvested, virtually all of the land south of 51 degrees latitude 51 is under tenure and has been factored into the future industrial timber supply. Although the forest industry is not nearly as dominant as it used to be in Canada (although it still is in British Columbia), it is still highly significant in Ontario, particularly for the support and economic welfare of many northern communities. Timber shipments from Ontario forests are worth nearly $16 billion (Canadian) per year, and forestry contributes $2.8 billion in salaries and 83,500 in jobs to the Ontario economy (Natural Resources Canada 2002). Timber supply is the lifeblood of the industry, and timber supply is particularly problematic in the boreal zone because of the long time required for trees to reach maturity--around 80 years in the southern boreal, but as long as 300 years in the northern boreal and taiga. Timber supply has recently become a critical issue in Ontario because of the success of societal pressure to increase the proportion of protected areas. Through a consultative process called the Lands for Life, which involved a landmark cooperative agreement between leaders of the forest industry, the environmental community, and the provincial government, the area of provincial park reserves was recently increased from 7% to 12% of the provincial area. As part of the agreement, the government guaranteed the industry that there would be no reduction in the timber supply. As all Crown land south of 51 degrees latitude is already effectively committed, this guarantee can be kept only by intensifying forest production in existing tenure areas or by expanding production into the northern boreal. Because many critical environmental issues related to intensive forest management have yet to be solved, expansion of harvesting into the northern boreal tends to be officially preferred.
Four issues are critical to the decision about what we should do with the northern Boreal. First, however, there is the question of whether development should be allowed at all. There is a fairly strong body of opinion that, because of the ecological and environmental significance of these remnants of unfragmented forest, they should not be opened to timber harvesting. The northern boreal does provide vital habitat for at least two endangered mammal species, the wolverine and the woodland caribou, neither of which respond well to disturbance. A little more accommodating, and much more widespread, is the view that we should allow some harvesting, but not yet, because our knowledge of the basic ecological constraints is so inadequate that we certainly cannot guarantee that any methods proposed will be sustainable. Our lack of knowledge is focused on four specific issues:
(1) We have no long-term growth and yield data for this forest upon which to base a realistic rotation plan. It is not clear that extrapolation from the scant long-term growth and yield studies in the southern boreal is supportable.
(2) We do not have any real information upon which to base regeneration methods or predictions. The record of natural regeneration in the southern Boreal is not promising and shows distinct evidence of a major shift from a forest dominated by spruce and pine to one dominated by balsam fir, aspen, and birch (Carleton 1995).
(3) Any harvesting would take place in very difficult, remote terrain with extensive rocky outcrops, organic soils, spruce bogs, and discontinuous permafrost. We do not, at present, have harvesting methods or road construction methods which we can be sure will not cause permafrost erosion and permanent damage, and perhaps turn a marginal carbon sink into a major carbon source, with clear climatic ramifications. My experience working on the degradation of hiking trails in Abisko National Park in Swedish Lappland, where a single hiker passing through once was enough to cause significant species change on some boggy areas, demonstrates the extraordinary fragility of the critically important ground-insulating vegetation layer. Numerous cautionary tales from oil and gas exploration on permafrost areas in the Canadian Arctic demonstrate the major consequences of permafrost erosion.
(4) We really do not know what are the most appropriate harvesting and silvicultural methods. Although the Crown Forest Sustainability Act (1994) in Ontario theoretically limits clearcuts to 260 hectares except in exceptional circumstances, during the past 7 years these exceptional circumstances appear to have become the norm, and clearcuts of up to 8,000 hectares have been permitted in the southern boreal. There is serious discussion in Ontario that large clearcuts, up to 10,000 hectares in size, should be permitted in the northern Boreal to mimic and replace the role of recurrent large wildfires. The clear consensus from the scientific research is that clearcuts do not mimic fire well, and such a policy would lead to significant change in species, if not in ecological function. In any case, it is certainly not clear that the policy of aggressive fire control, practiced in southern Ontario for the past 50 years is economically feasible for the northern boreal, and so we might get the worst of both worlds, with vast clearcuts and vast natural wildfires, which would be disastrous. Finally, of course, there is very strong societal opposition to such large-scale clearcutting. This opposition is kept in check only by the fact that so few of the population of Ontario travel to the northern boreal and see at first hand the environmental effects. Although large-scale clearcuts would appear to constitute a serious hazard in the northern boreal, it is not clear that other approaches such as selective or shelterwood cutting, which require more extensive road construction, would be appreciably less damaging.
Overlaid on all the concerns expressed above is the looming impact of climate change. There is no responsible scientist in Canada who does not recognize the major impact which climate change will have on the boreal forest in the next 50-80 years. Portions of the boreal forest are expected to experience increases of 4.6o C in mean winter temperatures and 2.5-3o C in summer temperatures. Whether driven by anthropogenic energy use or natural causes, the effects of climate change on tree survival and probably regeneration at the southern margins, on forest fire incidence, and on wildlife, are clear, and will certainly not be ameliorated by northward expansion of the boreal forest within the next few centuries.
Apart from the vitally important ecological questions which I have raised, there is one other issue of the greatest importance. Principle 22 of the Rio Declaration; Chapter 26 of Agenda 21, Article 8 of the Biodiversity Convention (Figure 6), and Principle 3 of the FSC Charter (Figure 7) all emphasize the importance of effective accommodation of the legal and customary rights of indigenous peoples as an essential cornerstone of sustainable development. Twenty-eight aboriginal groups live in the northern boreal forest of Ontario. Their relations with the remainder of Canada are governed by a patchwork quilt of treaties signed over the past 150 years. In every case these treaties are the subject of complex and prolonged legal action, primarily about land tenure and the degree of protection provided by treaties for traditional cultures and life styles. While these negotiations are unlikely to be concluded soon, it seems clear that the land-claim settlements will, and in my opinion certainly should, greatly extend the reach of aboriginal control over resource management. It is, however, unclear exactly how these land claim settlements will dovetail with government leasing arrangements or forest company land tenures. A wide range of co-management arrangements may well develop in time, but the negotiations to set these up and ensure that they will mutually beneficial and socially and economically sustainable will be protracted and difficult.
In view of the social and environmental uncertainties which I have briefly touched on, it seems absolutely clear that any expansion of timber harvesting and development into the northern boreal forest of Ontario at least premature, and almost certainly most ill-advised. At the very least, it is clear that we are not yet in a position to propose realistic policies or plans to ensure the sustainability of forest use. However, the timber supply problem is still alive and well, and the present Ontario government seems intent on proceeding with development, including clearcuts of up to 10,000 hectares, regardless of the global importance of this forest region.
In summary, when we appreciate the complex array of environmental, social, legal, economic, and anthropological issues which are playing out in the boreal forest of northern Ontario, and when we realize that similar or more complex conditions hold right across the country from Labrador to the Yukon, and when we know the rapidity with which the boreal forest is being harvested in northern Russia, we can have no confidence that any of the last decade’s progress in international agreements on criteria and indicators or certification of forest sustainability will do anything to conserve this last great frontier forest. When we join this picture to the rampant elimination of natural forest in the tropics, it is very difficult to make a convincing case that the last decade since Rio has been one of progress in global forest conservation. We still have a tremendous amount of work to do, and it remains to be seen whether foresters can do it, or will be allowed to do it.
References
Carleton, T.J. 1995. Consequences of large-scale, clear-cut logging in the Canadian Boreal Forest. Paper presented to the Conference on Conservation of Northern Forests, University of Toronto, Nov. 29-Dec. 51995.
FAO. 2001. State of the World’s Forests, 2001. Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, Rome.
Forest Stewardship Council. 1996. Principles and Criteria for Natural Forest Management. Document #1.2 Forest Stewardship Council, Oaxaca, Mexico.
Grayson, A.J., and W.B. Maynard(eds.). 1997. The World’s Forests–Rio+5; International Initiatives Towards Sustainable Development, Commonwealth Forestry Association, Oxford.
Natural Resources Canada. 2002. The State of Canada’s Forests. Natural Resources Canada, Ottawa.
Mrosek, T. 2002. Development and Testing of a Criteria and Indicators System for Sustainable Forest Management at the Local Level. Ph.D. thesis. Faculty of Forestry, University of Toronto.
Smith P. 1995. Aboriginal Participation in Forest Management: Not Just Another Stakeholder. National Aboriginal Forestry Association, Ottawa.
World Resources Institute. 2000. Canada’s Forests at a Crossroads: An Assessment in the Year 2000, Global Forest Watch Canada Report, World Resources Institute, Washington, DC.
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