Results of Previous CIFOR C&I tests to date
Germany
The German test was conducted between November 17 - 28, 1994 and evaluated four C&I sets including Smart Wood, Woodmark, ITW, and "Helsinki". The four experts involved used a preliminary 18 point ‘response form’ for the evaluation, which attempted to address issues such as objectivity, measurability, relevance and others. Principal collaborators on the project were the Institute of World Forestry and Initiative Tropenwald.
The test site was Forstamt Bovenden, which is a temperate, mixed beech-dominated broadleaf forest heavily influenced by humans. The 2,000 ha. test study area was located in a region of high population density and had a high recreational use demand and some local demand for firewood and non-timber forest products. Land ownership was by the State Forest Service. The area was managed as a shelter-wood system with logging in second rotation areas.
The characteristics of C&I that were seen as of greater importance to the evaluators included objectivity, quantifiability, and relevance. Other characteristics of declining importance included indicators for the maintenance of the forest resource, maintenance of the well being of local people, maintenance of biodiversity, maintenance of a functioning ecosystem, and maintenance of the well being of the population of the country.
The German test identified nine attributes as important for assessing C&I. These attributes were seen as instruments with which the cost-effectiveness of an assessment system could be improved and were used in all subsequent CIFOR tests:
Indonesia
The Indonesian test of C&I (March 4 - April 3, 1995) focussed on the management of evergreen dipterocarp-dominated forests in East Kalimantan. The five-person expert team consisted of three foresters, one ecologist, and one anthropologist (Prabhu and Venkateswarlu, 1995).
The test site extended over 340,000 ha. and had a relatively high population density. Indigenous communities along the river were far outnumbered by recent migrants from other parts of Indonesia. The site was a privately owned forest management concession on state forestland. Logging was occurring only in primary forests.
The follow-up workshop focussed on a number of issues. It was felt there should be clarification and distinction of criteria and indicators from certification. There was also general agreement on the proposals and C&I set made by the expert team (Prabhu and Venkateswarlu, 1995).
Côte d’Ivoire
The Côte d’Ivoire test was conducted in June 1995 in the area of the Forêt Classeé of Haut Sassandra and Bossematié. Both forests were located in a moist semi-evergreen zone and both showed the effects of over-harvesting in the past. The test sites totaled 124,000 ha. and were managed as State Forests. Logging in the first site was polycyclic and occurred only in the north in previously logged areas. In the second forest, management focused on rehabilitation and protection. The five-person expert team consisted of two foresters, two sociologists and one ecologist. The evaluation of C&I proceeded in much the same way as in the Indonesian test (Prabhu and Venkateswarlu, 1995).
There was a great deal of commonality between the C&I that emerged from this test and those that emerged from the Indonesian test. The most interesting were indicators of rehabilitation and social indicators related to participation of local communities (Prabhu and Venkateswarlu, 1995).
Brazil
The Brazilian test of C&I was conducted between October 23 and November 19, 1995. The test site was a tropical lowland evergreen forest with low to medium population pressure but increasing rapidly due to colonization. There were no Amerindian communities, but there were some old settlers. Land tenure in the test area was private and declared to be ‘farm land’. Logging occurred in areas that previously experienced light logging.
C&I sets from Woodmark, Smart Wood, Initiative Tropenwald, and Lembaga Ekolabel Indonesia were evaluated. The aim was to identify a minimum set of C&I that could provide a reliable and cost-effective evaluation of the sustainability of forest management under the conditions prevailing at the management unit. Expert team members consisted of two forest managers/planners, one sociologist, one ecologist, and one biophysical expert.
Austria
The Austrian test was conducted from September 18 to November 3, 1995 by the Austrian Federal Environment Agency in close cooperation with CIFOR. The objective was to select the smallest possible number of C&I to allow for the best possible judgements about forest sustainability specifically for Austria. The motivation for the test was a new law in Austria requiring quality marking of timber and timber products that originated from sustainable forest management. The Federal Environment Agency, which was in charge of defining the requirements for sustainable forest management, saw the CIFOR methodology as a good means of developing a practical set of C&I for the Austrian situation.
A team of six experts, primarily with backgrounds in ecology, economics and socio-economics, evaluated about 280 C&I taken from 14 different sets. Because the test did not consider the same core set of five C&I base sets that were evaluated by other CIFOR test teams, the Austrian test was seen as significantly different from the earlier tests. The field phase of the evaluation was conducted over a span of two weeks and used CIFOR’s evaluation methods. Four types of forest estate were tested: an 11,000 hectare Austrian Federal Forest, a 4,500 hectare private forest estate, a 350 hectare agrarian community, and a 12 hectare farm forest. The forest land situation in Austria was seen as different from CIFOR’s other test sites which -- except for the German test -- were located in tropical areas and were large-scale enterprises. The forested areas in Austria were mostly small private forest estates, largely semi-natural and man-made. The forests were located on the Danube floodplain and at several elevations from floodplain up to alpine environments. Past sheep grazing had extensively modified many forest environments. Ungulate browsing continued to affect mostly beech and maple trees in these forest stands.
The testing was completed within a period of 14 days. This was seen as not enough time and some of the project had to be completed on spare time. Clarification and consistent use of the terms "principles, criteria and indicators" was seen as essential. Some modifications to Form 2 were seen as necessary to improve interpretation and ease of use.
The test resulted in a set of 140 C&I that were considered by the test team to be practical and justifiable for certification. Adaptations to the European alpine zone required extensive new and reformulated C&I. Needs for certification included: i) specifying which criteria have to be met to result in a successful quality mark; ii) determining what information has to be provided when applying for the quality mark; and, iii) specifying what course of action has to be followed with a certification.
Cameroon
A sixth C&I test, which was not part of Phase I, took place in Kribi, Cameroon from October 24 to November 17, 1996. The test was done in close collaboration with the Office National de Developpements des Forêts (ONADEF), Tropenbos Foundation, African Timber Organization (ATO), Over-seas Development Institute (ODI), CIRAD-Forêt, Directorate General for International Cooperation (DGIS, the Netherlands) and GTZ (Germany). This was the most complicated of the C&I tests carried out so far. Six different three-person, inter-disciplinary teams were involved. C&I sets from the ATO, the Dutch Working Group, and a set compiled by CIFOR were evaluated.
The objectives of the test were: 1) to assess whether the CIFOR method for evaluating and developing C&I lead to consistent results; 2) to determine the effects of various amounts of time on the quality of the evaluation, with a view of making the CIFOR method more cost-effective; and 3) to develop a C&I platform, based on the conditions around Kribi, which could be used by local and national groups as a reference point for developing locally appropriate C&I.
The results indicated that 14 days in the field plus additional time for preparation and workshops seemed adequate for producing C&I that were useful for further iteration, either through further tests or workshops and conferences. About three weeks in the field was considered best. The results also indicated that a base set of about 250 C&I as a starting platform is manageable and sufficiently comprehensive. Effective teamwork was also found to be critical in achieving success and in compensating for individual weaknesses. The interdisciplinary approach was considered to be key in developing a streamlined and cost-effective set of C&I. Based on these operational reports, CIFOR planned to develop a field manual on how to evaluate and develop C&I. The manual would be targeted towards government and non-government organizations interested in the development of forest management unit level C&I.
The Cameroon teams proposed 19 principles, 103 criteria, 360 indicators, and 139 verifiers. Team members were instructed to give C&I related to policy matters the lowest priority among the four subject areas because there were no policy experts on any of the teams and time was a major constraint. It was also clear that come confusion still existed on how to distinguish between principles, criteria, indicators, and verifiers.
Policy issues emerging from the test included the need for land use planning, sustained and adequate funding, strengthening of institutions, reduction of pressure on forests through inter-sectoral co-ordination and the need for up-to-date information. There was little suggesting a role for the policy level to secure rights to tenure and access.
Proposed ecological C&I showed similar underlying frameworks to previous C&I tests. All the commonalties arising from the Phase I tests were found in the Cameroon test. CIFOR concluded that the ecological C&I proposed by the Cameroon teams are a good platform for the assessment of impacts on the ecology of the forests. However, there will be need to further refine these C&I, especially with respect to verifiers and performance thresholds.
It was agreed that planning and management plans for forest concessions were important. The need to codify harvesting standards was also recognized. Yield regulation was not considered to be important, possibly because, until recently, only 1or 2 trees per hectare were being harvested. Recent intensification in forest harvests may give yield regulation a higher priority. There was a general consensus that non-timber forest products were extremely important for local communities, and that they were currently poorly managed and badly marketed.
Issues related to the legal basis for forest management, such as its duration and broad objectives, were not considered important by most of the teams. The absence of any formal management plan or recognizable planning process for the area may have distracted many of the teams from seeing this as an important issue.
Well-being was implied or directly stated by the teams as being the overriding reason for carrying out sustainable forest management. Well-being was interpreted in terms of benefits to forest actors such as local communities, forest workers, investors, and timber-processing industry. It was generally felt that there should be a balance between rights and benefits on the one hand and the responsibility to the resource on the other. The Cameroon set included C&I for economics, introduced the capacity for social organization as an indicator, and placed a much higher emphasis on stakeholder participation.
CIFOR felt that the results of the Cameroon test were generally very satisfactory. The test results covered all the important aspects of sustainable forest management, with some weakness in the policy area. Some gaps were identified in the forest management C&I with respect to indicators and verifiers. The social C&I were seen as needing strengthening in terms of verifiers. The ecological C&I were seen as the best developed sets.
Summary
The results of the first phase of field tests in Germany, Indonesia, Côte d’Ivoire, Brazil and Austria showed considerable commonality on the relevance of C&I related to policy and legal frameworks, and ecological and production aspects to all test sites. There was a marked divergence regarding the social aspects of forest management. The social C&I selected at each site, not surprisingly, showed the least amount of commonality.
The tests also showed that more work is needed to make the conceptual framework of principles, criteria, indicators, and verifiers more consistent and operational. The ITW and Woodmark sets were the sources with the largest number of references in the proposals made by the experts at each of the three tropical test sites. The ITW set with over 600 C&I was generally considered to be the most comprehensive, in terms of conventional forest management. The Woodmark set was considered to be the most prescriptive of the five base sets used in these initial tests.
The sixth test in Cameroon served to refine the operational requirements for C&I field-testing, and further tested several improved C&I related to biodiversity and genetics.
Based on these field experiences, CIFOR suggests that an appropriate set of C&I address issues within the following four categories: