C H A P T E R

23
Sustainable Forest Management

Globally, around 129 Mha of forest, almost the size of South Africa, have been lost since
1990 (FAO, 2015a). Eighty percent of forest loss is driven by agriculture, which in turn
represents approximately 11% of total global greenhouse gas emissions. Forecasts indicate
that pressure on forests and agriculture will remain high, with the need for a 50% increase
in food production as well as a 27% 63% increase in energy supply by 2050 (WEC, 2013).
Of the total 129 Mha of deforestation between 1990 and 2015, about 58 Mha were
cleared for pastures and 69 Mha were directly or indirectly cleared for cropland. Six
agricultural crop commodities caused half of the 69 Mha of deforestation associated
with cropland expansion: soybeans (13 Mha, mostly in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and
Paraguay); maize (8 Mha); oil palm (6 Mha, mostly in Indonesia and Malaysia); wood pro-
ducts (5 Mha); rice (4 Mha); and sugar cane (3 Mha). To a lesser degree, commodities such
as rubber, sugar, cocoa (particularly in West Africa), and coffee also contributed to
deforestation.
Palm oil (African oil palm, Elaeis guineensis) recently surpassed soybeans (Glycine max)
as the most widely consumed vegetable oil in the world. The bulk of the increase in palm
oil production has come from area expansion rather than improvements in yield.
Increased demand for palm oil and limited availability of land in Southeast Asia has led
to expansion in other continents. Latin America has more than doubled its output since
2000, particularly in Colombia, Ecuador, and Honduras. Based on a sample of 342,032 ha
of oil palm plantations across Latin America, Furumo and Aide (2017) reported that 79%
replaced previously farmed lands (e.g., pastures, croplands, banana plantations), primarily
cattle pastures (56%). The remaining 21% came from areas that were classified as woody
vegetation (e.g., forests), most notably in the Amazon and the Petén region in northern
Guatemala.
Healthy forests and trees provide a range of services relevant for agricultural produc-
tion and family livelihoods, including food, feed for livestock, fuel, material for construc-
tion, fiber, and other uses. Equally important, and essential for sustainable agriculture,
trees or forests provide key ecosystem services that help regulate ecosystem processes.
They host a major part of biodiversity, including pollinators such as insects and birds
(Klein et al., 2007), pest control agents (Karp et al., 2013), and provide habitat for living
organisms that are key for soil fertility, including bacteria and fungi. They play a role in

Sustainable Food and Agriculture Copyright © 2019 The Food and Agriculture organization of the United Nations (FAO)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-812134-4.00023-6 233 Co Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
234 23. SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENT

soil protection (Pimentel and Kounang, 1998), nutrient recycling (Power, 2010), water regu-
lation (de Groote et al., 2002), microclimate regulation, and climate change mitigation
(Foli et al., 2014; Reed et al., 2017).
Forest fragments influence the provision of multiple ecosystem services in adjacent
agricultural fields, but quantitative evidence is scarce. Mitchell et al. (2014) looked at six
ecosystem services (crop production, pest regulation, decomposition, carbon storage, soil
fertility, and water quality regulation) in soybean fields at different distances from adja-
cent forest fragments that differed in isolation and size across an agricultural landscape in
the province of Quebec, Canada. The study showed significant effects of distance-from-
forest, fragment isolation and fragment size on crop production, insect pest regulation,
and decomposition. Distance-from-forest and fragment isolation had unique influences on
service provision for each of the ecosystem services measured. For example, pest regula-
tion was maximized adjacent to forest fragments (within 100 m), while crop production
was maximized at distances of 150 300 m from the forest (Mitchell et al., 2014).
Proximate tree cover can be beneficial to crop yield in agroforestry systems, but can
also have unintended negative outcomes for crop yield. This includes the harboring of
pests within adjacent forests or acting as incubation zones for plant diseases that can be
transferred to crop plants. Trees also directly compete for water, nutrients, and light where
their niches overlap with food crops. Wildlife animal populations encroach on to human-
claimed land, causing problems such as crop damage, livestock predation, and increased
risk of certain diseases. However, the design of integrated systems, such as agroforestry
systems, take such factors explicitly into account, for example, limiting competition
through adequate shade and root architectures of companion species.
The socioeconomic benefits and contributions of forests and trees to livelihoods are
diverse, but their quantification is often impeded by lack of data. Both the cash and non-
cash contributions to livelihoods of forests, in particular for rural families and marginal-
ized groups, are often underestimated. Wood and fiber make a significant contribution to
the shelter of at least 1.3 billion people, or 18% of the world’s population (FAO, 2014a),
and some 50% of the fruit consumed globally comes from trees, much of this collected by
women and children (Vira et al., 2015).

23.1 MANAGING FORESTS FOR SUSTAINABILITY

New management regimes that take account of the key roles of forests have meant that
landscapes are being managed for a much more diverse set of purposes (Ribot et al.,
2006). Hence, about two-thirds of the global forest area is explicitly designated to serve
purposes other than production. Thirty-one percent of the forest area is specifically man-
aged for protection of soil and water, and 13% for biodiversity conservation. Some coun-
tries have established and many have amended their government compensation schemes
to provide public goods by forests unrecognized by markets. While some countries use
payment for ecosystem services through markets, it is also being explored and piloted by
several others, particularly for recreation, water, and carbon.
Where large-scale commercial agriculture is the principal driver of land use change,
effective regulation of land use change, with appropriate social and environmental

II. CURRENT APPROACHES TO SUSTAINABLE FOOD AND AGRICULTURE

 23.1 MANAGING FORESTS FOR SUSTAINABILITY 235
safeguards, is needed. A range of governmental initiatives has been formulated to address
illegal harvesting of wood and related trade and illegal land conversion through changing
trade rules, including the US Lacey Act, the Australian Illegal Logging Prohibition Act,
and the European Union Timber Regulation. Initiatives on “forest law enforcement, gover-
nance, and trade” ensure that imported timber is legally harvested and traded.
Verification of the legality of harvested timber is slowly expanding, enhancing the role of
the private sector in strengthening sustainable forest management.
Private governance initiatives led to the formation of the Roundtable on Sustainable
Palm Oil and the Round Table on Responsible Soy. Around 14 major voluntary sustain-
ability standards now operate in agriculture and forestry-related fields, including for
wood, palm oil, soybeans, beef, bananas, cocoa, coffee, cotton, and tea. These programs
aim to provide premium access to markets, price premiums, and other benefits to produ-
cers for adhering to environmental and labor practices established by the certifying enti-
ties. While they are growing, their share of total land area is still small. Also, certification
programs have difficulties in adequately addressing smallholder producers.
By far, the largest share of certified area of agriculture and forestry land is covered by
forest certification and two major forest certification schemes—the Forest Stewardship
Council and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification—covering a com-
bined global total of 429 Mha (11%) of the global forest area as of May 2017 (UNECE and
FAO, 2017). However, only 15% of the total certified area is located in Africa, Latin
America, Asia, and Oceania, where the bulk of deforestation and degradation occurs.
A range of initiatives has mobilized commitments to stamp out deforestation from com-
modity chains responsible for much of the tropical forest destruction, especially cattle,
palm oil, soybeans, and wood products (EDF, 2017). An example of such an effort in
Brazil is presented in Box 23.1. Mobilizing action in livestock seems to be more difficult,
yet it is important. For example, in countries with high rates of deforestation, beef

BOX 23.1

S U S TA I N A B L E B E E F VA L U E C H A I N S
A N D D E F O R E S TAT I O N
Brazil’s three largest meatpacking com- agreement could raise and fatten their cattle
panies (JBS, Marfrig, and Minerva) signed on properties not covered by the pacts.
an agreement with the government in 2009, Then, they could sell the animals to ranchers
and later with Greenpeace, under which who are direct suppliers. That loophole was
they committed to buy only from suppliers closed with a publicly available database
that promised to reduce deforestation to that covered all animals and the areas where
zero. Unfortunately, the agreements left they were being transported, leading to
room for cattle laundering through which about 60% of the suppliers registering, and
the ranchers who are not signatories to the compliance reaching 96% by 2013.

II. CURRENT APPROACHES TO SUSTAINABLE FOOD AND AGRICULTURE

236 23. SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENT

production accounts for more than twice as much deforestation as that caused by the pro-
duction of soybeans, palm oil, and wood products combined.
Moving forward, much remains to be done to address deforestation and forest degrada-
tion driven by agriculture. Both policy and development practice still have a long way to
go toward explicitly integrating the direct and indirect benefits and services provided by
forests or trees in food production or development initiatives. Forest policymakers often
struggle to make the case for sustaining and investing in forests to provide ecosystem ben-
efits in the face of alternative land uses that promise higher short-term or more visible and
direct economic returns.

II. CURRENT APPROACHES TO SUSTAINABLE FOOD AND AGRICULTURE