Sustainable forests - News from the World of Trees - project to assess sustainablility of US forests - Brief Article

American Forests, Spring, 2002 by Carissa Wong

AMERICAN FORESTS is participating in a project to help assess the sustainability of the nation's forests. That information is destined to be part of the United Nations' 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, which will be held in Johannesburg this fall.

At a recent meeting in Michigan, AMERICAN FORESTS' representatives met with representatives from the Communities Committee of the Seventh American Forest Conference; the U.S. Forest Service; local partner Jerry Murphy, director of the Gogebic County (MI) Economic Development Commission; consultant Maureen Hart; and citizens of Gogebic County and the surrounding area.

The meeting was part of a three-year project that provides unique opportunities for local, regional, and national groups to explore how community-level data contribute to national and international efforts to describe and assess forest sustainability and community well-being. The goal is to work within, and provide guidance on implementing, a framework of criteria and indicators developed by 12 nations--Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, the United States, and Uruguay--to assess what constitutes sustainable management of temperate and boreal forests.

The questions addressed at that meeting will be used to prepare a comprehensive report on the state of the nation's forests. The "2003 National Report on Sustainable Forests" will benchmark what the United States knows about the condition of its forests, and what it will do to manage natural resources in a sustainable manner both today and in the future.

This national effort to link different levels of sustainability indicators will contribute to the United Nation's 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development. Fore more on the 2003 report, visit http://www.fs.fed.us/sustained/index.html. To get involved in national forest sustainability efforts, visit the Roundtable on Sustainable Forests at http://www.sustainableforests.net.