Fragmentation of information procurement from large area forest inventory and the link to the policy-making process within the international forest regime complex
Final Report Abstract
Forests provide a multitude of ecosystem services and products. The sustainable provision of these resources requires responsible, but most of all, well informed forest management and policy. This need was endorsed globally at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) 1992 where policy makers agreed on the objective of “sustainable forest management” and expressed a requirement for better forest data “availability, quality, coherence, standardization and accessibility” (UNCED 1992). The summit produced two legally-binding key-stone agreements detailing objectives of sustainable forest management within the International Forest Regime Complex (IFRC): the Convention on Biological Diversity (UN-CBD) and the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN-FCCC). European and national policies and reporting obligations under these regimes represent the link of the policy-science interface under investigation in this research project. Their analysis is regarded reasonable from the perspective of political research. Humphreys (2006) assumes that most conflicts of interests exist between these forest regimes. The globalisation of the forest regime has shifted the traditional focus of NFIs, which has been information provision for national level policy processes, towards providing relevant information for international-level problem solving and policy-making. On that background, two central questions arise: (1) In how far do policy requirements frame inventory development and selection; and (2) does the provided information have the capacity of supporting well-informed decision making? Our work and project results thus contribute to technical sciences of forest inventory which seeks to understand political data needs to improve data provision and relevance. In addition, it contributes to political research which wants to understand the production and use of information as a part of a political process. The present research answered the questions in 3 steps. First, it developed a structured list of “good practice” based on a literature review on linear models of rational data choice for well-informed decision making. Second, based on case studies in Poland, Germany and Sweden, it identified inventory data that actually found its way into report commitments and compares the decision-making value of that data. Third, our research identified reasons for shortcomings by (1) technical and (2) political factors. As a result, this work has identified two main-criteria of “good practice” of data provision: (1) completeness and (2) transparency of information. In German biodiversity monitoring and reporting, intransparency persisted only where the report did not use NFI estimates. Reasons for not using NFI data were the sampling design’s limited capacity to meet levels of precision/accuracy as required for national landscape-planning and conservation management. In contrast, the Swedish NFI meets the requirements and is thus the single source of information, there. Our results eventually indicate that monitoring and reporting, as a political process, favour completeness of relevant information over transparency. Regarding reporting under UN-FCCC, in all case-study countries, NFI was always relevant for estimation of carbon sequestration in growing stock. But assessment of other carbon pools required additional data sources. Results eventually indicate that Swedish and German carbon monitoring and reporting, as a political process, favour technically combinable information over the two quality criteria transparency and completeness. Preferences were opposite in Poland, where technical combinability of information and transparency were no data selection criteria.
Publications
- (2014): User-Oriented Forest Monitoring Planning: A Contribution to More Policy Relevant Forest Information Provision. International Forest Review, 19(4): 89-404
Arnold, F.E.; Rametsteiner, E.; Kleinn C.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1505/146554814813484059)
