The concept of Criteria and Indicators
C&I are a vital tool to enhance our understanding of forest ecosystems to inform sustainable forest management and decision-making and general public. In the next step, C&I are supporting national forest policy and facilitating international reporting.
In broader terms, C&I have been considered as useful tools to promote improved forest management practices as an integral part of sustainable development by:
- Providing a conceptual framework that characterizes the essential components of SFM;
- Providing a measure of the state of forests and their management, and thus assessing progress towards the achievement of SFM;
- Identifying trends and changes as well as emerging gaps and threats in the conditions of forests and their management;
- Determining the effects of forest management interventions over time;
- Facilitating decision-making in national forest policy processes;
- Providing a reference framework for the formulation and evaluation of national forest policies and programmes;
- Identify enabling conditions and mechanisms, including financial and technical resources that affect national implementation of C&I;
- Clarifying issues related to forest certification and marketing of forest products even though C&I are not performance standards.
By defining essential elements and measuring progress, C&I helps forest managers and policymakers to make informed decisions, ensuring that forests can meet present and future needs without compromising their ecological integrity.
The flexible nature of C&I helps to develop information and reporting systems that can be adjusted to the capacities, needs, and conditions, at the global, regional, international, national, subnational, and even forest management unit levels.
On the global level, SDGs indicators are used to monitor progress of the implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and their goals and targets, along with informing policy and ensuring accountability of all stakeholders.
The following series of policy briefs explores the variety of roles served by C&I.
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- Criteria and indicators - an universal policy tool for Sustainable Forest Management
- National Forest Inventory - tool for decision making
- Information Systems - tool for better forest policy and management
- Criteria and indicator-based international Monitoring, Assessment and Reporting
- Criteria and indicators for forest-related communication
To advance the use of C&I for policy-making, the UNECE/FAO Team of Specialists on Monitoring Sustainable Forest Management developed a proposal for a new approach - SEMAFOR (System for the Evaluation of the MAnagement of FORests), which was tested through voluntary assessment of the sustainability of forest management in European countries.
The concept uses a set of Pan-European criteria and indicators to evaluate sustainable forest management practices across countries. These variables cover various aspects of forest management, including forest resources, health and vitality, productive functions, biological diversity, and protective functions.
SEMAFOR represents an innovative approach to evaluate sustainable forest management, balancing objective measurement with contextual insights, and providing a foundation for future improvements in forest management assessment, and international reporting.
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