文档介绍：iii
Foreword
he State of the World’s Forests reports every two years on the status of forests,
Trecent major policy and institutional developments and key issues concerning the
forest sector. This is the fourth edition of the publication, the purpose of which is to
make current, reliable and policy-relevant information widely available to policy-
makers, foresters and other natural resource managers, academics, forest industry and
civil society. Our hope is that it will facilitate informed discussion and decision-
making with regard to the world’s forests.
As we approach the benchmark year of 2002, the tenth anniversary of the United
Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), it is an opportune
moment to take stock of the progress made over the past decade. UNCED sparked a
decade of change, characterized by new thinking and fresh approaches to forest
management, as well as questioning as to what its objectives should be and who the
beneficiaries should be. A vision of sustainable forest management emerged,
commitment was strengthened and innovative alliances forged with the aim of
mon goals in forestry.
Over the past ten years, the sector has moved in two seemingly opposite directions
simultaneously, towards “localization”, on the one hand, and “globalization”, on the
other. At the national level, forest planning processes, policies, legislation and field
programmes have taken on new emphases, including increased decentralization and
participation. Internationally, it has been a time of intense debate, with discussions
over the past five years resulting in agreement on several proposals for action,
including – very recently – the establishment of an international arrangement to
promote the sustainable management, conservation and development of all types of
forest, to strengthen long-term mitment and to promote the
implementation of the proposals for action. At the technical level, a wide variety of