A Review of Conceptual Understandings and Practical Experiences

CHALLENGE

While many international agreements, governments, private sector companies and civil society organizations have committed to implement both an ecosystem approach and sustainable forest management (SFM), there is a general lack of clarity on how these two concepts relate to each other. As a result, delegates to international fora on forest and forest-related issues have many different interpretations as to whether and how an ecosystem approach and SFM relate to each other.

APPROACH

In response to challenges arising from this definitional problem, recommendations were made to take necessary actions to clarify the conceptual basis of the ecosystem approach in relation to sustainable forest management at both the sixth Conference of the Parties (COP-6) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and Resolution 3/4 of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF). Based on the request made by the CBD and UNFF, the objective of this study was to evaluate the link between the concepts of an ecosystem approach and SFM and, using case studies, to review the differences and similarities in the application of these approaches with a view to improve the conservation of biological diversity and sustainable use.

Specifically, the study sought to:

• Outline the historical evolution and key operational features of the ecosystem approach and of contemporary SFM concepts.
• Review practical experiences in the application of SFM and the Ecosystem Approach.
• Explore how spatial and temporal perspectives inherent in the ecosystem approach and SFM can contribute to how we understand and address the economic, environmental and social trade-offs involved in land-use policy and practice.
• Suggest key policy and institutional interventions for operationalizing these concepts, and optimizing synergies between them, in contemporary resource management and planning.

A Review of Conceptual Understandings and Practical Experiences

CHALLENGE

While many international agreements, governments, private sector companies and civil society organizations have committed to implement both an ecosystem approach and sustainable forest management (SFM), there is a general lack of clarity on how these two concepts relate to each other. As a result, delegates to international fora on forest and forest-related issues have many different interpretations as to whether and how an ecosystem approach and SFM relate to each other.

APPROACH

In response to challenges arising from this definitional problem, recommendations were made to take necessary actions to clarify the conceptual basis of the ecosystem approach in relation to sustainable forest management at both the sixth Conference of the Parties (COP-6) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and Resolution 3/4 of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF). Based on the request made by the CBD and UNFF, the objective of this study was to evaluate the link between the concepts of an ecosystem approach and SFM and, using case studies, to review the differences and similarities in the application of these approaches with a view to improve the conservation of biological diversity and sustainable use.

Specifically, the study sought to:

• Outline the historical evolution and key operational features of the ecosystem approach and of contemporary SFM concepts.
• Review practical experiences in the application of SFM and the Ecosystem Approach.
• Explore how spatial and temporal perspectives inherent in the ecosystem approach and SFM can contribute to how we understand and address the economic, environmental and social trade-offs involved in land-use policy and practice.
• Suggest key policy and institutional interventions for operationalizing these concepts, and optimizing synergies between them, in contemporary resource management and planning.

CHALLENGE
More than 70 percent of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa depends on forests and woodlands for its livelihood; one fifth of rural families’ daily needs come from forests. Woodlands and forests supply approximately 60 percent of all energy. Forest-related activities accounts for a large part of the GDP of most of the continent’s countries. And, Africa is home to 25 percent of the world’s remaining rainforests.

Despite significant international financial support to the forestry sector in the Sub-Saharan African countries, impacts on sustainable management and poverty alleviation are still below expectations.

APPROACH
PROFOR support to the World Bank’s Africa region sought to meet the need for a more comprehensive approach to tackling forest-related challenges and proposing solutions. This approach could help countries better incorporate forestry issues into overall development policy, identify priority actions, and help donors/partners who support development and forestry in Africa coordinate and finance programs more strategically.

PROFOR funding supported:

• A review of forestry documentation on Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Identification of challenges and issues in sub-regions, with an emphasis on obtaining lessons from past successes or failures.
• Identification of recommended options with an Action Plan; roles and responsibilities; partners and if possible indications of required financing.
• Coordination among development partners (multilateral and bilateral).

RESULTS
Findings from this activity were incorporated in Forest, trees, and woodlands in Africa : an action plan for World Bank engagement (June 2012). The report lays out 7 action areas, which involve policy measures, increased investments and a greater push for sound governance to better manage forests:

1. Sustainable protection and development for wood-fuel and charcoal industries to serve domestic (and potentially export) markets;
2. Landscape and watershed restoration, including planting trees and the development of policy measures to prevent future and mitigate past damages from mining investments;
3. Plantation management to support a range of timber products in addition to wood-fuel including poles for construction and electricity transmission lines  and furniture;
4. Reforms and incentives in the domestic timber industry to reduce waste and support legal timber operators;
5. Increased management planning, development, and financing for protected areas, community-based resource management and eco-tourism;
6. Improved forest sales management in heavily forested countries
7. Development of REDD+ (reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) programs and carbon finance to help countries capture potential revenues from the carbon storing value of forests and promote co-benefits with communities through landscape restoration and reforestation projects.

Because of the geographic and climatic diversity in Africa, these action areas are adapted for the specific environmental challenges in each sub-region region (Sahel, humid West Africa, Central Africa, Eastern Africa, Southern Africa).

The report stresses that there is an urgent need to improve the availability and quality of information, especially statistical data, surrounding forests and woodlands. Mobile phones and other Information Communications and Technology are already being used to improve the collection and dissemination of forest data, including real-time fire alerts, game density mapping, and verification for legal timber operations.

CHALLENGE
More than 70 percent of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa depends on forests and woodlands for its livelihood; one fifth of rural families’ daily needs come from forests. Woodlands and forests supply approximately 60 percent of all energy. Forest-related activities accounts for a large part of the GDP of most of the continent’s countries. And, Africa is home to 25 percent of the world’s remaining rainforests.

Despite significant international financial support to the forestry sector in the Sub-Saharan African countries, impacts on sustainable management and poverty alleviation are still below expectations.

APPROACH
PROFOR support to the World Bank’s Africa region sought to meet the need for a more comprehensive approach to tackling forest-related challenges and proposing solutions. This approach could help countries better incorporate forestry issues into overall development policy, identify priority actions, and help donors/partners who support development and forestry in Africa coordinate and finance programs more strategically.

PROFOR funding supported:

• A review of forestry documentation on Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Identification of challenges and issues in sub-regions, with an emphasis on obtaining lessons from past successes or failures.
• Identification of recommended options with an Action Plan; roles and responsibilities; partners and if possible indications of required financing.
• Coordination among development partners (multilateral and bilateral).

RESULTS
Findings from this activity were incorporated in Forest, trees, and woodlands in Africa : an action plan for World Bank engagement (June 2012). The report lays out 7 action areas, which involve policy measures, increased investments and a greater push for sound governance to better manage forests:

1. Sustainable protection and development for wood-fuel and charcoal industries to serve domestic (and potentially export) markets;
2. Landscape and watershed restoration, including planting trees and the development of policy measures to prevent future and mitigate past damages from mining investments;
3. Plantation management to support a range of timber products in addition to wood-fuel including poles for construction and electricity transmission lines  and furniture;
4. Reforms and incentives in the domestic timber industry to reduce waste and support legal timber operators;
5. Increased management planning, development, and financing for protected areas, community-based resource management and eco-tourism;
6. Improved forest sales management in heavily forested countries
7. Development of REDD+ (reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) programs and carbon finance to help countries capture potential revenues from the carbon storing value of forests and promote co-benefits with communities through landscape restoration and reforestation projects.

Because of the geographic and climatic diversity in Africa, these action areas are adapted for the specific environmental challenges in each sub-region region (Sahel, humid West Africa, Central Africa, Eastern Africa, Southern Africa).

The report stresses that there is an urgent need to improve the availability and quality of information, especially statistical data, surrounding forests and woodlands. Mobile phones and other Information Communications and Technology are already being used to improve the collection and dissemination of forest data, including real-time fire alerts, game density mapping, and verification for legal timber operations.

CHALLENGE
More than 70 percent of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa depends on forests and woodlands for its livelihood; one fifth of rural families’ daily needs come from forests. Woodlands and forests supply approximately 60 percent of all energy. Forest-related activities accounts for a large part of the GDP of most of the continent’s countries. And, Africa is home to 25 percent of the world’s remaining rainforests.

Despite significant international financial support to the forestry sector in the Sub-Saharan African countries, impacts on sustainable management and poverty alleviation are still below expectations.

APPROACH
PROFOR support to the World Bank’s Africa region sought to meet the need for a more comprehensive approach to tackling forest-related challenges and proposing solutions. This approach could help countries better incorporate forestry issues into overall development policy, identify priority actions, and help donors/partners who support development and forestry in Africa coordinate and finance programs more strategically.

PROFOR funding supported:

• A review of forestry documentation on Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Identification of challenges and issues in sub-regions, with an emphasis on obtaining lessons from past successes or failures.
• Identification of recommended options with an Action Plan; roles and responsibilities; partners and if possible indications of required financing.
• Coordination among development partners (multilateral and bilateral).

RESULTS
Findings from this activity were incorporated in Forest, trees, and woodlands in Africa : an action plan for World Bank engagement (June 2012). The report lays out 7 action areas, which involve policy measures, increased investments and a greater push for sound governance to better manage forests:

1. Sustainable protection and development for wood-fuel and charcoal industries to serve domestic (and potentially export) markets;
2. Landscape and watershed restoration, including planting trees and the development of policy measures to prevent future and mitigate past damages from mining investments;
3. Plantation management to support a range of timber products in addition to wood-fuel including poles for construction and electricity transmission lines  and furniture;
4. Reforms and incentives in the domestic timber industry to reduce waste and support legal timber operators;
5. Increased management planning, development, and financing for protected areas, community-based resource management and eco-tourism;
6. Improved forest sales management in heavily forested countries
7. Development of REDD+ (reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) programs and carbon finance to help countries capture potential revenues from the carbon storing value of forests and promote co-benefits with communities through landscape restoration and reforestation projects.

Because of the geographic and climatic diversity in Africa, these action areas are adapted for the specific environmental challenges in each sub-region region (Sahel, humid West Africa, Central Africa, Eastern Africa, Southern Africa).

The report stresses that there is an urgent need to improve the availability and quality of information, especially statistical data, surrounding forests and woodlands. Mobile phones and other Information Communications and Technology are already being used to improve the collection and dissemination of forest data, including real-time fire alerts, game density mapping, and verification for legal timber operations.

CHALLENGE 

An emerging body of analytic work has demonstrated the linkage between poverty, armed conflict, and weak state governance. States which exemplify this nexus of human vulnerability and state failure are often referred to as ‘fragile states’-- those failing, whether for lack of capacity or political will, to perform core functions of delivering basic services and protecting the security of its citizens.

There are strong correlations between state fragility, conflict, and the means by which natural resources such as forests are managed by the state. When resource rents and concession allocations are used for patronage it has the perverse effect of not only undermining the sustainable use of forest assets for development and access to forests for local livelihoods, but it also short-circuits state accountability to citizens and the development of sound governance institutions, laying the foundations for state fragility and conflict. 

• the impact of conflict and fragility on forests, with a special focus on cross-sectoral post-conflict issues associated with the management of forest resources,
•  the mechanisms and channels of financial flows from forest extraction to state and non-state belligerents, which thereby facilitate or prolong conflict, and
• the characteristics of fragile states that should be the focus of reform in post-conflict interventions in order to improve protection of forests and forest-based livelihoods and to mitigate further conflict.

CHALLENGE 

An emerging body of analytic work has demonstrated the linkage between poverty, armed conflict, and weak state governance. States which exemplify this nexus of human vulnerability and state failure are often referred to as ‘fragile states’-- those failing, whether for lack of capacity or political will, to perform core functions of delivering basic services and protecting the security of its citizens.

There are strong correlations between state fragility, conflict, and the means by which natural resources such as forests are managed by the state. When resource rents and concession allocations are used for patronage it has the perverse effect of not only undermining the sustainable use of forest assets for development and access to forests for local livelihoods, but it also short-circuits state accountability to citizens and the development of sound governance institutions, laying the foundations for state fragility and conflict. 

• the impact of conflict and fragility on forests, with a special focus on cross-sectoral post-conflict issues associated with the management of forest resources,
•  the mechanisms and channels of financial flows from forest extraction to state and non-state belligerents, which thereby facilitate or prolong conflict, and
• the characteristics of fragile states that should be the focus of reform in post-conflict interventions in order to improve protection of forests and forest-based livelihoods and to mitigate further conflict.

CHALLENGE 

An emerging body of analytic work has demonstrated the linkage between poverty, armed conflict, and weak state governance. States which exemplify this nexus of human vulnerability and state failure are often referred to as ‘fragile states’-- those failing, whether for lack of capacity or political will, to perform core functions of delivering basic services and protecting the security of its citizens.

There are strong correlations between state fragility, conflict, and the means by which natural resources such as forests are managed by the state. When resource rents and concession allocations are used for patronage it has the perverse effect of not only undermining the sustainable use of forest assets for development and access to forests for local livelihoods, but it also short-circuits state accountability to citizens and the development of sound governance institutions, laying the foundations for state fragility and conflict. 

• the impact of conflict and fragility on forests, with a special focus on cross-sectoral post-conflict issues associated with the management of forest resources,
•  the mechanisms and channels of financial flows from forest extraction to state and non-state belligerents, which thereby facilitate or prolong conflict, and
• the characteristics of fragile states that should be the focus of reform in post-conflict interventions in order to improve protection of forests and forest-based livelihoods and to mitigate further conflict.

CHALLENGE 

An emerging body of analytic work has demonstrated the linkage between poverty, armed conflict, and weak state governance. States which exemplify this nexus of human vulnerability and state failure are often referred to as ‘fragile states’-- those failing, whether for lack of capacity or political will, to perform core functions of delivering basic services and protecting the security of its citizens.

There are strong correlations between state fragility, conflict, and the means by which natural resources such as forests are managed by the state. When resource rents and concession allocations are used for patronage it has the perverse effect of not only undermining the sustainable use of forest assets for development and access to forests for local livelihoods, but it also short-circuits state accountability to citizens and the development of sound governance institutions, laying the foundations for state fragility and conflict. 

• the impact of conflict and fragility on forests, with a special focus on cross-sectoral post-conflict issues associated with the management of forest resources,
•  the mechanisms and channels of financial flows from forest extraction to state and non-state belligerents, which thereby facilitate or prolong conflict, and
• the characteristics of fragile states that should be the focus of reform in post-conflict interventions in order to improve protection of forests and forest-based livelihoods and to mitigate further conflict.

CHALLENGE 

An emerging body of analytic work has demonstrated the linkage between poverty, armed conflict, and weak state governance. States which exemplify this nexus of human vulnerability and state failure are often referred to as ‘fragile states’-- those failing, whether for lack of capacity or political will, to perform core functions of delivering basic services and protecting the security of its citizens.

There are strong correlations between state fragility, conflict, and the means by which natural resources such as forests are managed by the state. When resource rents and concession allocations are used for patronage it has the perverse effect of not only undermining the sustainable use of forest assets for development and access to forests for local livelihoods, but it also short-circuits state accountability to citizens and the development of sound governance institutions, laying the foundations for state fragility and conflict. 

• the impact of conflict and fragility on forests, with a special focus on cross-sectoral post-conflict issues associated with the management of forest resources,
•  the mechanisms and channels of financial flows from forest extraction to state and non-state belligerents, which thereby facilitate or prolong conflict, and
• the characteristics of fragile states that should be the focus of reform in post-conflict interventions in order to improve protection of forests and forest-based livelihoods and to mitigate further conflict.