**5. Data and information infrastructure**

226 Sustainable Forest Management – Case Studies

3. Initial district objectives and constraints would then be defined by the District Committees by way of the Declaration of Local Objectives of Sustainable Forestry in conjunction with provincial and Forest District staff that would provide data, information and guidance to ensure that regional guidelines are properly interpreted and that objectives are realistic given the geophysical and cultural characteristics of the

4. The provincial technical staff would then develop a long-term, strategic, generally aspatial, multi-objective forest management plan for the entire district **as if all of these forests were being managed by the forest service**. Again, forecasting and modeling tools would be required that use knowledge and information concerning forests and economic and social factors in the district. These district plans would also take into account the expected probabilities of success in convincing forest owners to follow the district plan. While it is recognized that there is no assurance that individual forest owners would follow the plan, it should be possible to model the probability of compliance for given levels of incentives and regulation. The process of objective setting and plan development would itself be iterative, since it is certain that the planning process would uncover problems or opportunities that require modification of the initial objectives and constraints. The goal would be to produce a district plan indicating actions to be undertaken, results expected and resources (and policies) required for implementation. The district plan would also describe the actions and investments promised by other "co-responsible" parties involved in implementation, such as a community that promises to find investment for a valueadded plant to process a certain kind of product that is or can be made available from

5. When a district plan that is acceptable to the entire district (and provincial staff) has been developed, it would be passed back up to the regional staff for evaluation and possible approval. The evaluation process would involve ensuring that the guidelines have been followed, the regional objectives have been met, and the resources (and policies) required by the district are appropriate. For example, although each individual district plan could be reasonable, the budget requirements of all the districts together might not be able to be satisfied. It would be up to the regional staff to use their own information and models, along with the information from the districts, to produce a rational distribution of resources. Thus, budget rationing may require that some district plans be revised, taking into account the budgetary constraints for that district. It is also likely that information from district plans would

6. Once final versions of the district plans have been completed and approved, these would be used to produce a final version of the Plan Forestal de Galicia since most of the actions, results and resource requirements necessary to carry out the regional plan

7. During the period of implementation of the regional and district plans, it would be necessary to monitor the actions and results in individual FMUs to ensure that the plans are being followed and that the results are as expected. Besides acting as a control mechanism, the monitoring processes would help to provide the data and information necessary for subsequent iterations of the planning cycle. Such a monitoring system, if

production, production of non-timber products over a long time horizon.

district.

the forest.

prompt revisions of the regional plan.

are in the district plans.

indicate, for example, district targets related to reforestation, wildlife habitat, timber

A great deal of time and effort went into the design and documentation of the information systems and data structures required to support the new SFM strategy and process. For the purposes of this paper, these are summarized as:

**Spatial Forest Data Infrastructure (SFDI)**: The SFDI would supply basic spatial and attribute forestry data to be used by all levels of management and, eventually, the public. Based upon such concepts as Open GIS (promoted by the international Open GIS Consortium) and web-enabled designs, it would foster standardized gathering and storage of data required for planning and control of forest management, as well as for the development and evaluation of forest policies and programs.

**Integrated Forest Management System (IFMS)**: An integrated system of management tools would be required to ensure that plans at all levels of the management hierarchy are consistent, that actions and outcomes are monitored and controlled, and that decisions are justified and documented. These would consist of planning decision support systems (including forest modeling and forecasting tools to enable sensitivity and trade-off analysis) and monitoring and control tools to ensure that plans are being followed, and that objectives are being achieved.

**Monitoring and Control Systems**: Although specific monitoring and control tools would be part of IFMS, others were expected to be required to implement the SFM Strategy. In particular, these would include systems to compare outcomes to criteria and indicators of sustainability, to support regional forest certification initiatives, and to enable reporting of results to the public and to national, EU and international agencies.
