This manual provides a comprehensive set of criteria and indicators (C&I) for sustainable forest management based on CIFOR’s research. This research was conducted by interdisciplinary teams of experts in large-scale natural forests managed for commercial timber production in Indonesia, Côte d’Ivoire, Brazil and Cameroon, with additional sites in Germany, Austria and USA. The use of the term ‘generic template’, for these C&I is intended to prevent them being confused with an ideal and universally applicable set of C&I.

The Grab Bag: Supplementary Methods for Assessing Human Well-being is designed to complement The BAG. The Grab Bag is designed for use by social scientists who may find The BAG overly prescriptive. The eight methods presented are either more difficult for non-social scientists to use or, in a couple of cases, can substitute for one or more method presented in The BAG. Again, The Scoring and Analysis Guide provides the user with help in making an actual assessment of the social C&I, based on the results of these methods.

Who Counts Most? Assessing Human Well-Being in Sustainable Forest Management presents a tool, ‘the Who Counts Matrix’, for differentiating ‘forest actors’, or people whose well-being and forest management are intimately intertwined, from other stakeholders. The authors argue for focusing formal attention on forest actors in efforts to develop sustainable forest management.

The Jamaica National Environmental Action Plan (JANEAP) is a national Plan with a multi-sectoral approach. The duration of the Plan is 3 years between 1999 and 2002. The main objective of the Plan is to ensure good environmental planning and management to contribute to the sustainable development.Regarding the biological resources, forestry, watershed management, protected areas and oceans the Plan provides for different actions to be taken. A Fisheries Management Plan and an Ocean and Coastal Zone Policy will be prepared and implemented.

Land tenure institutions in customary land areas of Sub-Saharan Africa have been evolving towards individualized ownership. Communal land tenure institutions aim to achieve and preserve the equitable distribution of land (and hence, income) among community members. Uncultivated forestland is owned by the community or village, and as long as forest land is available, forest clearance of forest is easily approved by the village chief.

In the last two decades, there has been increasing interest in the potential of small-scale non-timber forest product collection and other low-impact uses of the forest for achieving forest conservation. Experience suggests however that such uses do not guarantee conservation and economic outcomes. This book documents and compares methods to assess options for forest-based livelihoods and their outcomes.

If one is of the mindset that the world is fundamentally chaotic and irrational, then the discpline of economics probably has little to offer. But if one accepts the notion that there is some method to the apparent madness of individuals, governments and organizations, then economic inquiry does have no some contributions to make. In this excercise, we argue that economic criteria and indicators of sustainable forest management should reflect the dimensions of efficiency, equity and sustainability, and need to look beyond the forest stand to institutional and policy issues.

This is the report of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) sixth test of criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management. The test took place in October and November 1996 in and around Kribi, Cameroon. Unlike previous criteria and indicators (C&I) tests, the Kribi test placed emphasis on testing methods for developing the C&I. Eighteen experts in forestry, ecology and social science from Cameroon and other countries were involved in testing C&I developed by ATO, a Dutch working group, and a set collated from several sources.

The Planning Commission set up a Working Group to examine the prospects of leasing out of degraded forests to the private entrepreneurs/ Forest Corporations. The terms of reference for the Group were:-

·  Economic, social and environmental feasibility of leasing or otherwise making degraded forest land to the
private entrepreneurs/ Forest Corporations.

·  Implication of Ninth Plan, forest policy, forest law on this issue.

The need for new criteria and indicators for the assessment of biodiversity conservation as part of sustainable forest management of tropical forests has been identified as a priority by many international organisations. Those biodiversity criteria and indicators which formed part of a much broader initial assessment by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) (Prabhu et al. 1996) were found to be deficient. This Working Paper contains specific proposals for biodiversity criteria and indicators.