Healthy ecosystems and sustainable economies are goals shared by national, county, state, private and industrial ownerships alike. Sustainable development should be viewed as having three equal and interdependent components: eco- systems must be healthy, economies must be sound and communities must be strong in order to fully meet the needs and expectations of people.
The US work environment is, from an administrative perspective, highly fragmented. Land managers face common issues that are beyond sole source solutions or remedy along administrative lines. The challenge for this century’s generation of land managers is to bridge administratively fragmented landscapes to address shared concerns.
The legal and institutional framework mandating and promoting sustain- ability has precipitated decades of monitoring of associated C & I. Despite billions
of dollars of investment, no national system of C & I has been developed to enable the assembly of key information on environmental and social issues.
There is convergence between how federal and state government, industrial- sector and private-sector managers characterize sustainable forest management in the USA. The MP C & I have promoted forums for discussion, development and implementation of C & I. This is an essential step for collaborative assess- ment, planning and decision-making processes to address shared concerns.
The US FS is using C & I to strengthen the relationships between inventory, assessment, planning, budget formulation and operations, and monitoring and reporting at multiple scales.
While a systems approach is important for understanding interrelationships, it should not be considered as the only approach for promoting dialogue and decision making. C & I measurement frameworks such as the MP C & I are invaluable tools to inform dialogue and decision-making processes.
There is a continued need to strengthen partnerships and integrated approaches to facilitate collaborative processes between federal and state gov- ernments, to enable the assembly of unified information on key social, economic and environmental issues.
C & I frameworks should continue to be refined to reflect ecosystem services and serve as the basis for unit-level monitoring strategies.
The MP countries have made progress in reporting on the state of their respective forests. Some countries have broadened and deepened the applica- tion of C & I to sub-national levels, as well as to regulatory frameworks.
The USA has made substantial progress in applying C & I for sustainable for- est management by both federal, state and country government and industrial and private sectors. This has increased the US institutional capacity to bridge administratively fragmented landscapes, foster shared learning and collaborate to help provide key social values from US forests. This progress has contributed to the emerging notion of better science-based governance.
Acknowledgements
The FS Sustainable Development Issue Team contributed to the development and application of sustainability concepts identified herein. For more informa- tion please see http://www.fs.fed.us/sustained/msie4 Albert Abee, Chair.
Figures 5.3, 5.4 and 5.5 were developed by members of the FS Strategic Planning and Assessment Staff. http://fsweb.wo.fs.fed.us/rpa/ Paul Brouha, Director.
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