# Presentation: 110462

## Cross-walking the Montreal Process Criteria & Indicators with Southern Data Sets 

**Erin Sills**
**Department of Forestry & Environmental Resources**
**North Carolina State University**
- (sills@ncsu.edu)
- Research assistance: April Grecho, Kevin Potter, Kelly Jones, Tzu-Ming Liu
- Funding: USDA Forest Service SRS

## Cross-walking Objectives

- Identify data sources for measuring Montreal Process (MP) indicators in the US South
- Compare MP and SFRA approaches to measuring forest sustainability
- Evaluate feasibility of MP framework for measuring forest sustainability in the US South

## Montreal Process

| 1. Conservation of biological diversity |
| --- |
| 2. Maintenance of productive capacity of forest ecosystems |
| 3. Maintenance of forest ecosystem health & vitality |
| 4. Conservation and maintenance of soil & water resources |
| 5. Maintenance of forest contribution to global carbon cycles |
| 6. Maintenance & enhancement of long-term multiple benefits |
| 7. Legal, institutional, and economic framework |

**Notes:**
Following 1992 Rio Summit, meeting in Montreal in 1993, then series of meetings, with input and negotiation from 12 countries containing 90% of world’s temperate forest, resulting in set of criteria and indicators in 1995

## Montreal Process

_*Criterion:*_ A category of conditions or processes by which sustainable forest management may be assessed
_*Indicator:*_ A measure of an aspect of the criterion
- Quantitative or qualitative
- Demonstrates trends (ideally, periodical)
- Seven criteria; 67 indicators

**Notes:**
The seven criteria are listed on the back wall; the indicators are what we actually try to measure to show trends and hopefully progress towards more sustainable forests; thus, the Montreal Process was a stakeholder process where the stakeholders were countries; considering that we have made neglible progress towards a binding international agreement on forest conservation or management, it is a significant achievement to have these countries agree to measure sustainability in a compatible fashion

## Southern Forest Resource Assessment

- 23 questions
- Public input:
- 10 public meetings
- 750 participants
- 100s of written comments
- Goal: Regional public ownership in process
- Rapid scientific assessment process using available knowledge and data for each question

**Notes:**
But of course there are other ways to measure sustainability
Questions rather than criteria  -  summarizing regional concerns about southern forests and their uses

## Cross-walking

- How does the process (scale) of measuring forest sustainability affect the findings?
- Rated how well SFRA meets data requirements for the MP Criteria and Indicators
- Scale of 0 to 5, with three components:
- General adequacy of SFRA data (3 pts for quantitative)
- Spatial scale of SFRA data (1 pt for ecological province)
- Temporal scale of SFRA data (1 pt for < 10 year period)

**Notes:**
Fundamentally requires data that are available south-wide  ...  so should be more available than nation-wide, but in-depth study in one county or one state does not count for MP, even if cited as example in SFRA

## Example

- Criteria 1, indicator 2: Area and extent by forest type and by age class or successional stage
- SFRA data
- Spatial Scale: only state or south-wide
- Temporal Scale: collected at irregular intervals
- Adequacy: only forest management classes
- Forest Health Chapter 1 provides
- Area of timberland by stand-age class and forest management type, Southern United States in 1999, based on FIA data 1990 - 1999

**Notes:**
3.5  -  .5 spatial, .75 on temporal, 2.5 on adequacy

## Measuring MP C&I with SFRA

- SRSF webpage links to results
- For all 67 indicators:  	*1.3 out of 5*
- For 30 indicators with scores higher than 0:
*	**	**	**	**	**2.8 out of 5*
- Note: Scores indicate how well SFRA data measure MP indicators* **(not general availability of data, how well MP indicators measure SFRA, or forest sustainability)*

**Notes:**
Close to 200 data tables from SFRA relevant to MP C&I

## Comparison conclusions

- Most overlap between SFRA and C&I:
- Forest ecosystem productive capacity
- Forest contribution to global carbon cycles
- Conservation of biological diversity
- Maintenance and enhancement of timber & recreation benefits
- SFRA and C&I focus on different aspects of:
- Forest ecosystem health and vitality
- Conservation and maintenance of soil and water resources

**Notes:**
78 tables for 5 indictors under productive capacity, 8 tables for 3 indicators under global carbon cycle 

## Comparison conclusions

- Least overlap between SFRA and C&I:
- Maintenance and enhancement of long-term socio economic benefits (non-timber products and non-consumptive benefits)
- Legal, economic, and institutional framework for forest conservation & sustainable management

- →Lacked data
- → Focused on different scale

## Locating additional data: methods

- General search for data on forest resources via library databases & internet
- National and other regional reports (Oregon, NorthEast)
- Survey of participants in Charleston Roundtable
- Meetings with USDA FS Economics Unit at Research Triangle Park, and NCSU Dept of Forestry & Environmental Resources Graduate Students
- Snowballing to new contacts and new resources
- Sought input from National Report Indicator lead investigators on:
- Issues of components, levels
- Issues of definition, scale, compilation

**Notes:**
To go back to example or indicator 2 under criterion 1  ...  maybe NatureServe or USGS National Vegetation Classification System have additional data to offer.  We looked especially for those lacking data, but really for all indicators.  Different regions have approached this differently.  Oregon FAR lists lots of 

## Criterion 3: Indicator 17

- “Area and percent of forestland with diminished biological components indicative of changes in fundamental ecological processes (e.g., soil nutrient cycling, seed dispersion, pollination) and/or ecological continuity (monitoring of functionally important species)”
- SFRA – no data identified
- Additional sources – National Council for Air and Stream Improvement (NCASI)
- Questions
- Should the examples given (soil nutrient cycling, etc.) be taken as the specific indicators to measure or should they be adapted to the South?
- Should the critical levels (what is “fundamental”) be based on levels set by national report or should they be adapted to the South?

## Criterion 7: Indicator 57

- “Enforce laws, regulations and guidelines.”
- SFRA – no data identified
- Additional sources – State and Federal Forest management have their own law enforcement and regulations
- Questions
- Scale – is this appropriate for measure at sub-national level?  If so, should we seek to measure only enforcement of state and local laws?  Or should we measure enforcement of federal laws in the South?
- Definition – what is meant by enforcement?  Inputs (budget for law enforcement)?  Successful prosecutions of violations?
- Compilation – data could be gathered from individual law enforcement agencies and courts  -  how do we balance cost of data collection against value of detailed data?

## Locating additional data: format

- SRSF webpage links to results
- Spreadsheet of MP Criteria and Indicators
- contains hotlinks to data pages of agencies and organizations
- indicates temporal and spatial scale
- includes suggestions for additional data sources

## Locating additional data: findings

- Identified at least one data source for almost all indicators
- Some of the indicators in criteria 7 may not be appropriate to assess at the regional level
- Some data are available to measure ~ 85% of 67 indicators
- Criteria 1, 2, and 3 have the best data coverage
- Examples of indicators with weak data coverage:
- 26, 33, 40, 49, 65
- Challenges:
- assembly and interpretation of data
- time series data to compare current conditions to the range of      							    historic variation

## Cross-walking

- For more information:
- 		SRSF webpage:
- 			http://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/srsf/
- 		Email:
- 			sills@ncsu.edu