1. Sustainable Forest
Management:
Is Everything in Order but the
Patient Still Dying?
Robert Nasi,
Center for International Forestry Research
Session 147: Demonstrating Sustainable Forest Management
XXII IUFRO WORLD CONGRESS
8-13 August 2005, Brisbane

2. Outline
Tropical forests
Some recent positive trends
Reality check
Lesson learned
Conclusions
Some implications for forestry research

3. Tropical forests

4. Tropical forests
Are the most biodiversity rich terrestrial
ecosystem but are under unprecedented
pressure for agricultural land and forest
goods and services
Protected areas are essential to conserve
tropical forests and their biodiversity but
protected areas alone won’t work
Most of the important biodiversity will be
conserved or lost in managed forests used
to produce timber and other goods.

5. Some recent positive trends
The area of tropical forests under protection has
increased dramatically
The area of tropical forests under formal
management is quickly increasing
New, powerful management tools are available
Markets value forests for what they are
(certification, payment for environmental services)
A growing proportion of forests is owned and/or
managed by communities living in and by these
forests
We witness emerging new paradigms for natural
resource management

6. Everything in
order?

7. Reality check
Tropical forests continue to be destroyed or
degraded at an alarming rate
A large part of tropical forests, either or not in
protected areas, either owned or not by
communities, is still in a situation of
uncontrolled harvesting of forest resources (from logging
to hunting or NTFP collection)
under antiquated, inadequate and poorly enforced legal
frameworks
facing increasing land conversion for agriculture and
spontaneous colonization
with widespread corruption at all levels

8. Reality check, managed timber
production forests
Basic tenets, from European models ‘exported’ to
the tropics in the 50s, have not really changed
Existing plans are often based on unrealistic
prescriptions hindering their adoption by a large
part of the operators or pushing them into illegal
activities
Concern mainly large concessions in untouched
forests whereas there is an increasing number of
small to medium scale enterprises working in
secondary or logged-over forests.

9. Reality check, success stories
There is however a growing portfolio of (partial)
successes in managing tropical forests for
production:
Managed timber concessions (Latin America, Africa,
South-East Asia)
Joint Forest Management (India)
Community based forestry (Central America and Mexico,
Nepal)
Environmental NGOs - logging companies partnerships
(Central Africa, Indonesia)

10. What do failures and
success stories tell us?

11. Lessons learned
We must change the main conceptual model of
tropical forest management, look for new
paradigms and apply them
We need to rethink our concept of sustainability in
the context of the management of production
tropical forests

12. Lessons learned: shifting
paradigms
The long-standing approach to management of
(marine) resources is based on a flawed
conceptual model: the ‘optimal’ harvesting of
targeted stocks in systems that are assumed
to be reasonably stable
An emerging approach rejects this paradigm in
favor of management practices that recognize
coupled socio-ecological systems that are
characterized by complex dynamics and
thresholds, with multiple possible
outcomes and inherent uncertainties
Hughes et al. (2005)

13. Lessons learned: shifting
paradigms
Sustained production of a single commodity
(sustained yield forestry)
Sustained production of multiple goods and
services (multiple use forestry)
Sustained production of multiple goods and
services while maintaining future options and
not damaging other ecosystems (sustainable
forest management)
Strategy for the integrated management of
land, water and living resources that promotes
conservation and sustainable use in an
equitable way (ecosystem approach, INRM)

14. Lessons learned: sustainability
None of the actual forest management
approaches is really ‘sustainable’ in the tropical
forest context
Forest composition inevitably change
Some species are lost or become to rare for use
New ecosystems emerge with new properties
Altered ecosystems will not revert to their original
wilderness condition by relieving stressors (e.g. logging)
Success stories are more about building resilient
adaptable socio-ecological systems than about
achieving sustainability

15. Lessons learned: sustainability
The following points appear essential in building
resilient socio-ecological systems:
consider both people’s interests and natural resources
mix top-down and bottom-up approaches
rely on partnerships and negotiated approaches
recognize and use local knowledge
avoid complex or unrealistic rules and regulations
monitor carefully but allow for adaptation and learning
foster and use technical progress
taylor-made management solutions are always superior
to generic ones

16. Lessons learned, in summary…
Do not try to achieve “Sustainability”
Avoid irreversibility
Allow change but manage for resilience
Recognize linkages between environment and
people
Recognize that uncertainty is inevitable and design
flexible management regimes
Do not wait, take decisions based upon a careful
assessment of potential risks and costs
Learn by doing and from others and use what you
have learned

17. Is the patient dying?

18. Is the ‘managed’ patient dying?
My answer is ‘no’ but it is sure suffering and will
certainly change because of us
We must learn to adapt our management to the
emerging new modified ecosystems we created
and not only focus on ‘primary-like’ ecosystems
We should envision Sustainable Forest
Management as a co-evolutionary process
between the changing forest, the changing market
and an industry moving toward higher efficiency
standards over time
The aim should be maintenance of functional
forest ecosystems providing a continuous flow of
goods and services

19. Some implications for forestry
research
The endless search of a globally accepted
definition of SFM is pointless
Research should consider various scales both
spatial and temporal; results from short term, local
experiments should be used with caution and
always subject to revision
Forestry researchers should open-up, learn from
and team up with others (health, marine sector)
Disciplinary approaches are doomed to fail and
trans-disciplinary training should become part of
forest research curriculums

20. Thank you