The Value of Forests - Details

Many of the values receiving increased attention must be considered at relatively large spatial and temporal scales (e.g., regional, continental, and global biodiversity).

The Value of Forests - Details

The objective of sustainable management is to maintain all of these values in all forests at all times. This requires that each forest type provide its “fair share” of each value in relation to other forest types and regions, as well as to future generations.

The challenge to the current and future generations is to coordinate the equitable distribution, or “fair share”, of production and consumption of forest values among stands, landscapes, regions, and countries, while avoiding the inefficiency of central planning. International forestry committees such as the Montreal Process Working Group have tried to specify how forests can be sustainable by defining robust criteria of sustainability. The objective of forest management would then be to maintain all criteria at all times and in all forests. Each local forest ecological type would be expected to provide its “fair share” of each criteria—with fairness or equability being evaluated with respect to: (1) other regions of the world and (2) future generations. For example, overharvesting wood in one region might flood the global wood market; the depressed wood prices would prevent other regions from harvesting economically, leading to a loss of incomes to their forest communities. Alternatively, harvesting too little wood in one forest type may hasten an increase in wood prices, thereby creating an incentive for other regions to raise harvest levels and potentially generating pressure to harvest protected forests.

Defining each region’s “fair share” of each of the criteria for sustainability is not easy, however. Forests and people are not evenly distributed throughout the world; expecting each country or region to be self-sufficient and sustainable would give superabundant forest resources to some areas (e.g., North America, Brazil, and the former Soviet Union) and deprive other areas of timber and other resources (e.g., North Africa, the Caribbean, and much of south and southeast Asia). It will probably be several decades before a generally acceptable definition of “fair share” can be achieved and the means for monitoring and implementing it are established.

The Value of Forests - Details

However, the values provided by forests are not equally distributed among forest types or regions. Biodiversity is a good example. The majority of the global terrestrial biodiversity is concentrated in tropical forests, which are found in economically underdeveloped countries; in contrast, biodiversity is typically low in temperate zone forests -- most of which are in economically developed countries.

Graph of species richness or diversity by region

The Value of Forests - Details

Improvements in transportation and communication abilities have led to the establishment of efficient global marketplaces.

The Value of Forests - Details

As a consequence surpluses of forest values from one region might be able to offset shortfalls in other regions.

The Value of Forests - Details

Other regions produce more wood than they consume; in general, however, the balance between production and consumption is quite close in most regions.