Sustainable Forest Management
The pan-European concept of SFM is a success story. Since 1993, it safeguarded a common approach for dialogue, monitoring and policymaking.
But forest policy and management face emerging environmental and political challenges. We need to revisit the role of SFM. How does it relate to other concepts? What are its strengths and weaknesses? Can it serve as a balancing tool to moderate new claims on forests and its resources? We need to keep it fit for the future.
What is SFM?
According to the Helsinki resolution, SFM is: “the stewardship and use of forests and forest lands in a way, and at a rate, that maintains their biodiversity, productivity, regeneration capacity, vitality and their potential to fulfill, now and in the future, relevant ecological, economic and social functions, at local, national, and global levels, and that does not cause damage to other ecosystems”
Criteria & Indicators
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C1
Forest Resources & Global Carbon Cycles
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C2
Forest Ecosystem Health and Vitality
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C3
Productive Functions of Forests
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C4
Forests Biological Diversity
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C5
Protective Functions (Soil & Water)
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C6
Socioeconomic Functions
Guidelines for SFM
Guidelines for each criterion, divided into the two parts: Forest Management Planning and Forest Management Practices, focused on basic ecological, economical and social requirements for sustainable forest management.
Guidelines for afforestation and reforestation
Set of recommendations to implement economically viable, environmentally sound and socially equitable afforestation and reforestation programmes and projects.
Next event
High-Level Talks 2023 | Growing healthier forests: How can Sustainable Forest Management enhance resilience?