Managing forests sustainably involves recognizing interconnections among environmental, social, and economic systems to preserve options for future generations while meeting the needs of the present. Many organizations are turning to a criteria and indicators (C&I) approach to help describe forest sustainability. Under this approach, criteria define broad categories of sustainability and indicators are specific measurements of each category.
The USDA Forest Service, Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry (NA) and the Northeastern Area Association of State Foresters (NAASF) share a commitment to the sustainable management of forests and have endorsed the Montreal Process framework of C&I. NAASF commissioned a work group of Northeastern Forest Resource Planners Association (NFRPA) members and NA staff to work on the actions needed implement C&I.
A key component of this initiative is the development of a limited number of indicators, referred to as the base indicators, to assess the sustainability of forests across the Northeastern Area States. These base indicators, which span the Montreal Process sustainability criteria, were adopted by NAASF in 2001. An assessment conducted with this suite of base indicators can introduce the many facets of sustainability to the general public; can contribute to informed discussions of the appropriate balance among economic, environmental, and social considerations; and is a useful mechanism to track general information with regards to sustainability. NA and NAASF plan to utilize these base indicators to develop a NA-wide forest sustainability C&I assessment report every 5 years.
As the next phase in implementation of these base indicators, the NA/NFRPA work group recently completed a data availability assessment. This process included identifying potential indicator verifiers, including metrics and data sources for each base indicator. We started by compiling information about data available at the national and regional levels; utilizing work group knowledge and conducting research to identify additional data sources.
Following this initial assessment of data available at the national and regional levels, we surveyed the 20 states in the Northeastern Area to determine which data from the base set of indicators, not already identified as available, are collected at the state level. Information about data available from each state was compiled and analyses were conducted to consider data quality, verify potential data sources, and examine consistency of data across the 20 states.
The results of the survey of data available at the state level were compiled with the initial assessment of data available at the national and regional levels. Additional collaboration with forest sustainability efforts at the national level, primarily by the U.S. Roundtable on Sustainable Forests, helped ensure that updated information about data available at the national level were included in this assessment. Information compiled includes the metrics, recommended data sources, definitions, reporting cycles, data quality issues, and areas of data inconsistencies and gaps for the base indicators.
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