Measuring sustainable forest management in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina

CARABELLI E.; BIGSBY H.; CULLEN R.; PERI P.L.

JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE FORESTRY

The Haworth Press

Lugar: England; Año: 2007 vol. 24 p. 85 - 108

1054-9811

The Tierra del Fuego government has a statutory responsibility to ensure that Nothofagus forests are sustainably used, respecting them as a natural and social heritage to be preserved for future generations. Provincial regulations also require that a Regional Forest Plan and long-term forest policies are developed. To contribute to the development of this Plan and to provide strategies to maximize the forest’s sustainable benefits for society, this research develops indicators of sustainable management of Lenga forests. Multi-criteria methods are used to integrate different perspectives regarding environmental, social and economic aspects of the forest’s management. Starting with a range of internationally accepted criteria and indicator (C&I) schemes, a local set of C&I were developed to assess the forest’s sustainability. The relative importance of the C&I, and the degree to which sustainability was being achieved through each of the indicators was assessed using a survey completed at a series of workshops attended by a range of stakeholders. The results of the study show that based on the opinion of stakeholders, current management is achieving 2.5 on a range from 1.0 to 5.0, where 1.0 means that the aspect measured by the indicator is close to a critical threshold value (ability of the ecosystem to recovery) and 5.0 is far from this threshold value. The results also show that the key areas to work on are in policy and planning, resource administration, monitoring of resource use and public information about and involvement in forest use.