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Over the centuries, governments and international agencies have developed a wide range of institutions to manage timber resources and conserve values provided by treed lands. Concerns regarding the sustainable supply of timber have provided opportunities for the development of substitute resources; however, bamboo and other non-timber forest resources have not been a part of the development of these institutions. Bamboo is a unique Non-Timber Forest Product, as it is often classified as forest or timber, and therefore must adhere to the same regulations as timber. Given the recent global expansion of bamboo, it is timely to examine the interplay between bamboo and the traditional institutions of forest governance. This paper aims to contribute to debates regarding cognitive institutional constraints on the development of substitute natural resources using bamboo as a case study, with specific focus on the applicability of Forest Stewardship Council certification, timber legality verification and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation to bamboos.

Social forestry programs, by their nature, need to take more factors into consideration than other forestry programs. It is often not possible to project the effects of all these factors even with the best plans. Occasionally, the deviations from the original plans are positive, but more often than not these deviations either delay or halt the social forestry program. To minimize the latter from happening, some practitioners have found ways of keeping a social forestry program working. The key is to consistently practice monitoring and evaluation before and during the program. Other ways to ensure continuity is to form the right objectives. These have to be manageable and within the resources of the community to achieve. It is also important to schedule activities based on the current activities of the community. Choosing the staff for the program, especially if they come from outside the community is crucial. So is making sure that the program staff is careful about distinguishing between cooperation and coercion. Finally, since many social forestry programs are situated in developing countries, where natural and man-made disasters both have a tendency of happening without safety nets to alleviate the damage, the program must make some allowances for such events. These allowances include time, funds, and back-up plans.

The densely populated, forested landscapes of South Asia pose a particular challenge to an understanding of the dynamics of forest change. Of the six countries in this region, four – Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal – have experienced increases in forest area and/or in forest density, which cannot be directly attributed to commonly identified drivers of forest change, such as changes in population density, affluence, or development. A meta-analysis of 24 case studies finds that the dominant pathway to reforestation in South Asia appears to be that of protection and planting of trees in degraded forests. A second, commonly encountered pathway is farm agroforestry, leading to increased tree cover on privately owned lands. Reforestation on abandoned unproductive lands does not appear to be significant in South Asia. An in-depth study of four landscapes located in India and Nepal provides greater insight into the human drivers of reforestation and regrowth. Taken together, these analyses indicate that the commitment of national governments towards protection and the devolution of forest management to local communities have been critical in facilitating reforestation in this region.

Agarwood, also known as eaglewood or gaharu, is a valuable non-timber forest product which sometimes grows in Aquilaria species. The genus species occur mainly in South and Southeast Asia. As a result of a defense mechanism to fend off pathogenes, Aquilaria species develop agarwood which can be used for incense, perfume, and traditional medicines. The main markets for these products are in South and East Asia and the Middle East.

This chapter discusses economic globalization and world trade in rela- tion to forest sector modeling for the US/North American region. It discusses drivers of economic globalization and related structural changes in US forest prod- uct markets, including currency exchange rates and differences in manufacturing costs that have contributed to the displacement of global manufacturing capac- ity. It includes detailed discussion of paper and paperboard trends. Bilateral trade flows between the USA and Canada for all wood products, were modeled within the Timber Assessment Projection System, with currency exchange rate assump- tions among key elements influencing projected trade. This chapter describes how assumptions about globalization and trade influenced model results, using exam- ples of recent RPA Timber Assessments. Techniques and results of the Timber Assessment Projection System models are compared to those of a more general global trade model, the Global Forest Products Model (GFPM). The GFPM was used recently to project international forest sector developments conditional on the 2000 RPA Timber Assessment. The results showed that while the USA, Japan, and Europe were predicted to remain major importers of forest products out to 2030, the rapid economic growth of China would make it the world's largest market for raw wood and intermediate and final forest products. In a separate study, exchange rate assumptions were found to be important determinants of major US trade flows as projected by GFPM, particularly for manufactured commodities such as pulp and paper.

The objective of this study was to estimate wood and fiber utilization by product, and the corresponding input-output coefficients in countries where only the total input and output are known and where the production statistics missing or wrong. The method gives wood and fiber utilization accounts in close agreement with the reported statistics, and consistent with prior knowledge of consumption functions and of production technologies. The first step estimates the consumption of final products in countries that have obvious errors or no data. This estimation predicts consumption from GDP and population. The second step estimates for each country the input-output coefficients from raw material to product, while adjusting statistics on production, if necessary. A goal-programming model keeps the difference between the estimated and the official statistics as small as possible, while maintaining input-output coefficients within plausible bounds. The results give a full account of the wood and other fiber utilization in each country, together with input-output coefficients and measures of the conversion efficiency.

Forests are important for all living beings. For humans, their importance is traceable from the economic, social, cultural, political, ecological, and even spiritual points of view. It is usually recognized that the forest is important to the livelihoods of the local people. Their lives are centered around the forest and their cultures develop from their relationship with it.

The 21st century continues a trend of rapid growth in both international trade of forest products and a concern for forests. These two trends are connected. Forces causing trade growth are linked to the loss of native forest resources in some countries and the accumulation of nonnative forest resources in other countries. Factors increasing trade include relaxation of trade barriers, income growth, and improvements in wood growing, harvest, and manufacturing technologies. But environmental concerns are increasing as consumer preferences change, and as native forests recede and plantation forests become more prominent.

This paper presents preliminary results of research on the development of heuristics for spatially constrained natural resource management problems. These problems encompass constraints on traditional forest product flows over time and constraints on the distribution of harvests over space and time. Emphasis is on designing efficient solution techniques that may take into account the forest-wide temporal and spatial interactions of decisions made on individual stands. Specifically, constraints on minimum and maximum opening sizes and on both the number and size of old growth patches in each planning period are considered. The heuristics are briefly described. Results for an ecosystem management application in Portugal are discussed. Both the quality of the heuristic solutions and computational aspects of implementation are discussed.

The previous Chapters have shown that there is enormous variation between countries in the condition of their forests and in the importance attached to forest resources and how they should be managed. Most countries now have a policy for forestry, but these also vary considerably from being fairly general statements of principle to quite specific prescriptions, with priorities and targets. It is also clear that the existence of a policy is no guarantee that the aims of the policy will be realised in practice and many examples have been given which show that the existence of an evidently good policy is no guarantee that it is implemented.

The article analyses activities carried out over the past 15 years to contain deforestation and to phase in sustainable forestry in three West African countries:Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon and Gabon. The article first reviews selected experiences with national forest action plans, land use and agricultural programs. Corporate forest management initiatives,forest product certification and related initiatives are then discussed. The article suggests that land use and agricultural issues require higher attention by policy makers if sustainable forestry is to become a reality in the region.

Experience with a hierarchical world model of production, consumption, and trade Global Forest Product Model (GFPM), with Asia-Pacific as a subregion, confirms that equilibrium theory is a powerful way of getting coherent forecasts of many interacting forest economies. The GFPM model has produced forecasts at country and commodity level that are useful for Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) global and regional outlook studies. However, several areas of improvement exist. The modeling work has revealed many shortcomings of the basic national statistics. The regional submodels are currently being replaced with a single model considering all countries simultaneously. The econometric demand equations can still be improved, especially their price elasticities. International econometric wood supply equations are almost nonexistent, and alternative models of wood supply need to be developed. The description of technology by activity analysis is powerful, but the comparative cost of production in different countries can be improved. The dynamics of trade flows and capacity expansion still require adjustments and perhaps new theory. Still, operational regional and global forest sector models are now available to individual analysts, giving them the means to produce their own forecasts, based on alternative scenarios of global growth and forest policies.

After the Chernobyl accident large areas of forests in Ukraine received a significant fallout of radionuclides. During the next 50-70 years the most significant problem for the general population of Ukraine is that of 137Cs (see Table 1 for 137Cs data). Despite the fact that the soil’s contamination levels in the western part of Ukrainian Polesye (the Volyn’ and Rivne Regions) are relatively low, the problem of forest component of the total dose from internal exposure is of main concern, mainly because of the soil’s and climatic conditions resulting in persistent high levels of 137Cs in food products in contaminated areas of those Regions [1–4].

The rapid economic and demographic changes in the Asia-Pacific region during the past twenty years, have led to several studies of the Asia-Pacific forest sector. These have been intended to help government policy makers, forest industrialists and investors understand recent changes and foresee major future trends. This article summarizes some recent studies of the authors and their associates (FAO 1997; Zhang et al. 1997a, 1997b). It analyzes past trends and present forecasts of the future demand, supply and trade of forest products in the Asia-Pacific region.

Japan, the Republic of Korea, Sweden and Finland are unique among the industrialized countries in the sense that, in these countries, economically sustainable forest management has been achieved at a high level of forest cover. In fact, 59-77% of their land areas are forest covered, while the world average is 27% (FAO 1997).

The forest sector in Russia is of significance for the economy of the country, accounting as it does for 4% of the GDP. Similarly the sector accounts for over 7% of the total industrial labor force of the country (Burdin 1997).

Approximately 2% of global production and 3% of trade in merchandise derive from the goods based on the raw materials that forests supply. In this article, we consider the main magnitudes of production of and trade in forest products. The article includes broad estimates of the value of production.

Brazil’s search for economic progress and the utilization of its forest resources have been characterized by the dilemma between utilization practices and attempts to conserve. In a region which is still endowed with virgin land and diverse resources it is a difficult dilemma to solve. An example is the policy adopted by the post-1964 governments concerning the expansion of Brazil’s agricultural frontier, especially for cattle raising, towards north and west central regions in the Amazon basin.

This article is concerned with environmental-trade linkages in the global forest products sector, in particular the role of trade in influencing sustainable forest management. The latter term has been interpreted in many different ways. Here, the chief concern will be with sustainable production and environmental management of those forests currently or potentially exploitable for timber, although there is also a general concern of the impact of timber production and trade on the “sustainability” of forest resources generally and the potential values of their goods and services. The main focus will be on trade in the major wood products — roundwood, sawnwood, plywood, furniture and pulp and paper products.

The Republic of South Africa is a large and diverse country, covering an area of 122 mill. ha. South Africa has large regional variations in its climate, topography and vegetation. The country has a population of 42 mill, people with a growth rate of 2.2% per annum. Infant mortality, per 1 000 live births, is 50 and life expectancy at birth is 64 years (United Nations 1997).

In recent years, concern about the destruction of tropical forests has led to increased interest in the role of the international timber trade in promoting deforestation in the tropics. At the same time, concerted international efforts led by global institutions such as the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF), are searching for ways to improve the role of trade in providing incentives for more sustainable, long-term management of tropical forests. This linkage between sustainable forest management and the international trade in forest products was also enshrined in the global Forest Principles Accord of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) at Rio de Janeiro.

New initiatives in agroforestry are seeking to integrate into tropical farming systems indigenous trees whose products have traditionally been gathered from natural forests. This is being done in order to provide marketable products from farms that will generate cash for resource-poor rural and peri-urban households. This poverty-alleviating agroforestry strategy is at the same time linked to one in which perennial, biologically diverse and complex mature-stage agroecosystems are developed as sustainable alternatives to slash-and-burn agriculture.