Link to article: http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Sunday/National/2323687/Article/index_htmlRefer to the news “MNS Wants Reserve To Be Made National Park”, I would like to share some information about forest management.
The earth is 70% water and 30% land. Tropical rainforest covers 7% of the world's landmass, representing 1.7% of the earth's surface. Tropical rainforest contains more than half the flora and fauna in the world and is an important factor in the conversion of carbon dioxide to oxygen.
Concerns about environmental and social issues associated with forestry, such as effects on biodiversity, climate change, desertification, flooding and conflicts over rights and sustainable development generally has led to some international agreements and programmes for improving forest management practices. However, forest management is widely considered to be a difficult concept to implement.
The challenges of forest management are:
a. Weak understanding of sustainable forest management in forestry practice
An adequate understanding of the implications of the meaning of sustainable forest management is a prerequisite to effective implementation as it helps in systematic determination and prioritisation of actions required for changing the existing forestry practice to conform to the requirements of sustainable forest management principles.
b. Ineffective governance and law enforcement
The most fundamental requirements for successful implementation of sustainable forest management are effective governance and law enforcement. The importance of this has been stressed in many international initiatives and particularly in the recent EU led Forest Law Enforcement and Governance and Trade/ Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) initiative involving tropical timber-producing countries where illegal timber harvesting is a problem; this includes Malaysia and Indonesia. The World Bank has estimated a revenue loss of USD10 billion a year to governments through illegal logging and corrupt practices in the last 10 years!
c. Inadequate technical capacity
Achieving sustainable forest management requires specific technical capacity, which in turn requires forest managers to have adequate understanding of the wide range of issues involved. Principally, sustainable forest management involves three broad disciplines (environmental, economic and social), which ought to be manipulated in such a way to ensure high quality forest management and responsible practice
d. Inadequate financial resources
Implementing sustainable forest management is costly and needs adequate financial resources, although it is believed that in most cases, premiums may be realised in the long term. In the short term, however, this could be a disincentive, especially for low income countries where short-term returns is probably needed to maintain commitment towards progress; they are therefore unable to meet the associated financial and logistics costs.
For long term biodiversity welfare, the above challenges should not be treated as the obstacles in achieving sustainable forest management. Continuing effort should be carried out to increase international pressure to facilitate effective implementation of sustainable forest management. Adequate understanding of sustainable forest management should be formulate to ensure the policy outcomes address key issues that help to strengthen practical implementation of sustainable forest management.
The earth is 70% water and 30% land. Tropical rainforest covers 7% of the world's landmass, representing 1.7% of the earth's surface. Tropical rainforest contains more than half the flora and fauna in the world and is an important factor in the conversion of carbon dioxide to oxygen.
Concerns about environmental and social issues associated with forestry, such as effects on biodiversity, climate change, desertification, flooding and conflicts over rights and sustainable development generally has led to some international agreements and programmes for improving forest management practices. However, forest management is widely considered to be a difficult concept to implement.
The challenges of forest management are:
a. Weak understanding of sustainable forest management in forestry practice
An adequate understanding of the implications of the meaning of sustainable forest management is a prerequisite to effective implementation as it helps in systematic determination and prioritisation of actions required for changing the existing forestry practice to conform to the requirements of sustainable forest management principles.
b. Ineffective governance and law enforcement
The most fundamental requirements for successful implementation of sustainable forest management are effective governance and law enforcement. The importance of this has been stressed in many international initiatives and particularly in the recent EU led Forest Law Enforcement and Governance and Trade/ Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) initiative involving tropical timber-producing countries where illegal timber harvesting is a problem; this includes Malaysia and Indonesia. The World Bank has estimated a revenue loss of USD10 billion a year to governments through illegal logging and corrupt practices in the last 10 years!
c. Inadequate technical capacity
Achieving sustainable forest management requires specific technical capacity, which in turn requires forest managers to have adequate understanding of the wide range of issues involved. Principally, sustainable forest management involves three broad disciplines (environmental, economic and social), which ought to be manipulated in such a way to ensure high quality forest management and responsible practice
d. Inadequate financial resources
Implementing sustainable forest management is costly and needs adequate financial resources, although it is believed that in most cases, premiums may be realised in the long term. In the short term, however, this could be a disincentive, especially for low income countries where short-term returns is probably needed to maintain commitment towards progress; they are therefore unable to meet the associated financial and logistics costs.
For long term biodiversity welfare, the above challenges should not be treated as the obstacles in achieving sustainable forest management. Continuing effort should be carried out to increase international pressure to facilitate effective implementation of sustainable forest management. Adequate understanding of sustainable forest management should be formulate to ensure the policy outcomes address key issues that help to strengthen practical implementation of sustainable forest management.
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