Table Of ContentSustainable Development Goals Series
Life on Land
Alastair Fraser
Achieving the
Sustainable
Management of
Forests
Sustainable Development Goals Series
Series editors
R. B. Singh, Delhi Sch of Econ, Univ of Delhi, Dept of Geography,
Delhi, Delhi, India
Suraj Mal, Department of Geography, Shaheed Bhagat,
University of Delhi, Delhi, India
Michael E. Meadows, EGS, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch,
South Africa
World leaders adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of the
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Providing in-depth knowledge,
this series fosters comprehensive research on the global targets to end pov-
erty, fight inequality and injustice and tackle climate change.
Sustainability of Future Earth is currently a major concern for the global
community ans has been a central theme for a number of major global initia-
tives viz. Health and Well-being in Changing Urban Environment, Sendai
Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, COP21, Habitat III and
Future Earth Initiative. Perceiving the dire need for Sustainable Development,
the United Nations and world leaders formulated the SDG targets as a com-
prehensive framework based on the success of the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs). The goals call for action by all countries, poor, rich and mid-
dle-income, to promote prosperity while protecting the planet earth and its
life support system. For sustainability to be achieved, it is important to have
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form to the scientific, teaching and research communities working on various
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towards the current 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
Volumes in the Series are organized by the relevant goal, and guided by an
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ing goals:
No Poverty
Zero Hunger
Good Health and Well-Being
Quality Education
Gender Equality
Clean Water and Sanitation
Affordable and Clean Energy
Decent Work and Economic Growth
Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
Reduced Inequalities
Sustainable Cities and Communities
Responsible Consumption and Production
Climate Action
Life Below Water
Life on Land
Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Partnerships for the Goals
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practices from diverse regions, and enhances the understanding at local and
regional levels in order to contribute towards global sustainability.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15486
Alastair Fraser
Achieving the
Sustainable
Management of Forests
Alastair Fraser
Consultant in Forest Policy and Economics
Perthshire, UK
ISSN 2523-3084 ISSN 2523-3092 (electronic)
Sustainable Development Goals Series
ISBN 978-3-030-15838-5 ISBN 978-3-030-15839-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15839-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019935525
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
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To the Fraser Forestry Foundation, Indonesia.
v
Preface
As undergraduates, studying forestry in the mid-1950s we were taught about
the principles of sustainable forest management, and these have not really
changed over the years. At that time, “sustainability” was not much talked
about outside forestry circles, and so life as a professional forester became a
battle between the principles and the reality of a society that valued the short
term over the long.
Having become deeply involved in international forestry affairs, it has
been distressing to see so much of the world’s forests being destroyed, largely
for short-term financial gain, with little thought for all the other living organ-
isms that rely on forests for their habitat. The livelihoods of communities that
live in or near forests have been destroyed or compromised through loss of
access to a multitude of resources that they can obtain from the trees, other
plants, and animals that live in forests. Many such organisms are now either
extinct or are seriously endangered.
An enormous amount of time and effort has been put into international
meetings and fora to discuss the definition of, and need for, the sustainable
management of forests, but with a few notable exceptions there is little to
show for it on the ground. The reasons for this lack of progress are manifold,
but they can be boiled down to a few key issues that need to be addressed. The
usurpation of land by the state in many countries has tended to lead to a “trag-
edy of the commons” and overexploitation. The separation of responsibility
for timber production, conservation, and forest industry within government
hierarchies has led to contradictions and confusion in policies. The attempts
to promote sustainable forest management by market-oriented instruments
such as “certification” and Voluntary Agreements have resulted in leakage
and the displacement of the curse of illegal logging.
There are some notable examples of initiatives that have achieved some
sort of sustainability, and the features that they share are strong leadership,
multi-stakeholder involvement, and the sustaining of effort and funding over
a very long time period: over 20 years. Too many development initiatives
have a short, politically determined time frame and so never achieve
sustainability.
vii
viii Preface
This book is very much a practitioner’s perspective and draws on much
research conducted by others as well as an analysis of the main global forestry
database developed by FAO over many years. It concludes with a “to-do list”
of things for various stakeholders. It hopes to inspire young people consider-
ing a career in forestry to do what is needed and perhaps a few “Champions”
for the cause to devote some time and effort to persuading politicians and the
public about the need for action.
Perthshire, UK Alastair Fraser
Contents
Part I Background
1 Introduction � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 3
2 The Definition and Meaning of Sustainable
Forest Management � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 7
3 The Current Status of Sustainably Managed Forests � � � � � � � � � 11
Assessing Sustainable Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Changes in Forest Area in the Last 5 Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Illegal Logging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Property Rights and Land Ownership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Supply and Demand for Forest Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Market Failure in Forest Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Institutional and Financial Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Is Sustainable Forest Management Possible? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Part II Institutional Issues
4 Policy and the Political Will � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 31
The Politics of Sustainable Forest Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
The Benefits of Managing Forest Resources Sustainably . . . . . . . . 33
The Need to Achieve Consensus Among Stakeholders . . . . . . . . . 33
Forest Policy and the Instruments to Implement It . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
The Politics of Land-Use and Ownership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
The Politics of Incentives for Sustainable Forest Management . . . 42
5 Institutions and Policy Instruments Required to Ensure
Forests Are Managed Sustainably � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 47
Institutional Arrangements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Policy Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Legal Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Financial Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Technical Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Human Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
ix
x Contents
6 L and Rights Issues and Rural Poverty � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 59
Land Ownership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Rural Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Community Forestry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Part III Sustainabiliity
7 T he Sustainability of Biodiversity � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 69
Landscape Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Protected Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Baseline Biodiversity Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
International Initiatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
8 E nvironmental Sustainability and Climate Change � � � � � � � � � � 75
Soil Erosion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
The Contribution of Forests to Climate Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Potential Impacts of Global Warming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Changes in Sea Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Extreme Weather Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Changes in Hydrological Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Distribution of Agro-ecological Zones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
The Contribution of Forests to Solving the Problem . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Incentives for Avoiding Deforestation and Forest Degradation . . . 87
9 S ustainability of the Supply of Timber and Non-timber Forest
Products � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 93
Consumption of Timber Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Production Forest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Forest Timber Growing Stock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Supply–Demand Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Trade-in Timber Forest Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
The Structure of the Timber Processing Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Forest Management for Timber Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Adding Value to Timber Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Non-timber Forest Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Wood-Based Energy: Fuelwood and Charcoal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Properties of Wood as an Energy Source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Wood Energy Conversion Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Other Non-timber Forest Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Forest Grazing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
10 I llegal Logging � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 115
Definition of Illegal Logging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Extent of Illegal Logging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Drivers of Illegal Logging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Impact of Illegal Logging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Combatting Illegal Logging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Technological Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
