**3.3 Goal and objectives of forest ecosystem mediating indicators**

Objectives and practical use of the indicator are intended not only to be a measure for communication, but also for mediation and negotiation process in itself and the further understanding of forest ecosystem and management of the forest resources. The indicators are part of the process and the overall objective can be specified by separate regimes and roles into the following regimes/roles as shown in Table 6. However, goals must be stated and the context of mediation by means of indicators must be set. The paramount goal is to contribute to democratized and enlightened mediation of ecosystem knowledge, services and values between nature and society, and strengthen the locals' position in the locals versus globals relationship, and hopefully secure the wise and sustainable use of the forest. Table 7 shows the relationship between the main features of the ecological mediation.

The integrated mediation by means of indicators is dynamic and process oriented interchange and can conveniently be divided into different phases (Table 8). These phases also give an indication of the learning cycle of the activities.

Mediation is not only an end-of-project activity, but an integral part of project development. Suitable settings for mediation can be established prior to inventory (as part of planning), part of field work (inventory), part of management and part of a continuing learning and negotiation process. In a dialogue, stakeholder's interests are also maintained, represented here by local and global interests with accompanying impacts. Negotiated goals and aspects are the result of the process, integrating the consensuses of ecological content, definition of ecological service and values, and suggesting a political/management ecological regime that embraces the negotiated knowledge regime. Through genuine communicative mediation an equitable and symmetric communication process may then emerge.



Table 7. Paramount goal and mediation of ecology

18 Sustainable Forest Management – Case Studies

The corresponding influence of how the understanding of ecology (scientific) and nature, and the epistemological and ontological approach, are also illustrated in Fig. 3, and derives from the case study work in which the *indicator* was designated to be the core element in the forest management system in order to strengthen the position of the locals. The BEM framework is built on a nature versus culture model presented by Hermansen (2006, 2010). FEMI is the general and theoretical model for the indicator, while CFEMI is intended to be a specific and practical indicator reflecting the complexity of the relationship between the

The structure of the communication process based on BEM framework can be illustrated as shown in Table 6. The two knowledge regimes (empirical and methodological), which are two different ways of acquiring and constructing knowledge, are paired with the accepted viewpoints of both globals and locals about ecological issues. A normative standpoint is taken by insisting on the right of local people to understand and participate in a discursive reflection on the content and value of the indicator system. The appurtenance interests of the globals comprise the ecological area regarding empirical knowledge acquired by an epistemological methodological approach, and the appurtenance interests of the local comprise the ontological way of experience of nature and natural resources and later

 **Appurtenance of ecological knowledge** 

**3.2 Terms and theoretical perspectives of the communication model** 

**Knowledge acquisition The globals The locals** 

**3.3 Goal and objectives of forest ecosystem mediating indicators** 

**Experience /empirical** The ecological accepted (relevant) The ontological regime **Scientific work/methodological** The epistemological regime The social accepted (relevant) Table 6. Structure of knowledge regimes and appurtenance for globals and locals for the

Objectives and practical use of the indicator are intended not only to be a measure for communication, but also for mediation and negotiation process in itself and the further understanding of forest ecosystem and management of the forest resources. The indicators are part of the process and the overall objective can be specified by separate regimes and roles into the following regimes/roles as shown in Table 6. However, goals must be stated and the context of mediation by means of indicators must be set. The paramount goal is to contribute to democratized and enlightened mediation of ecosystem knowledge, services and values between nature and society, and strengthen the locals' position in the locals versus globals relationship, and hopefully secure the wise and sustainable use of the forest. Table 7 shows the relationship between the main features of the ecological mediation. The integrated mediation by means of indicators is dynamic and process oriented interchange and can conveniently be divided into different phases (Table 8). These phases

Mediation is not only an end-of-project activity, but an integral part of project development. Suitable settings for mediation can be established prior to inventory (as part of planning), part of field work (inventory), part of management and part of a continuing learning and negotiation process. In a dialogue, stakeholder's interests are also maintained, represented

catchment forest ecosystem and local society.

ecological knowledge acquired by scientific work.

Forest Ecosystem Mediating Indicator (FEMI) concept.

also give an indication of the learning cycle of the activities.

Table 8. Typology of the different interests through the different mediation phases

### **3.4 Using FEMI to bring momentum to local management**

MA (2005) is an initiative for handling the ecosystem resources under the vision of a globalized world and offers a framework both regarding ecosystem and geographic scaling. It further elaborates the relationship between the ecosystem and the human needs for ecosystem services that contribute to well-being and poverty reduction in the form of security, basic material for a good life and good social relations. This in turn necessitates requirements for freedom and choice of action. Status and quality of the forest on the global and regional scale will often be assessed in coarse categories such as area cover by forest, degree of deforestation, estimates of economic value of logs, stakeholder values etc. Application of the MA concept can easily result in a change of resource control and management away from already weak local participants to international bodies and business. FEMI is meant to adjust the management attitude in MA to facilitate a stronger local participation.

Assessments of the ecological status and trends require a set of indicator systems. *The Driving force–Pressure–State–Impact–Response* (DPSIR) framework (Smeets & Wetering, 1999)

Methodology for Forest Ecosystem Mediating Indicator – Case Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania 21

The scientific judgement on the feasibility of BEM framework and FEMI will depend on expectations, and many demurs and critics discussed can be raised. Concepts for ecological integrity which incorporates information from the multiple dimensions of ecosystems are, however, expected to be a useful tool for ecosystem managers and decision makers. The mediation framework and indicator are devised both to expose ecological integrity, and to be instrumental for the mediation between nature and society, and between locals and globals. This implies that the ultimate results of the application of the indicator is connected to the process of continuing improvement of genuine understanding between the globals and locals, and the continuing improvement of the management of the forest in order to secure ecosystem services for the local people as first priority and for the globals as second. Working out the indicator system and then executing the implementation both contribute to the momentum of the learning loops and to the factual learning about the very easy

accessible features of the forest ecosystem and corresponding ecosystem services.

then be less reliable for calculation of the indicator.

assessment, judgement and estimation.

**5. Conclusion** 

Both selection of ecological phenomena, variables, field methods and measurements, and composition and calculation of the composed indicator are critical issues. To achieve a sufficient accuracy is difficult for many of the variables especially those depending on estimation of heights and cover. The success of the indicator will depend on how the balance of purpose, accuracy and selection of possible variables are compared with the momentum for increased local participation, increased consciousness and ecological knowledge, and increased motivation for interactive cooperation for finding wise solutions. Local participation of sustainable management of a tropical forest requires that the knowledge about ecological status and the ecosystem services that the forest can provide, can be communicated in way that support enlightenment, democratic management processes and are environmentally sound. Hence, whole process of development and implementation using ecological indicators should be scientifically and ecologically proper (the global perspective) and locally understandable and fair (the local perspective). The case study shows that it is possible to carry out field inventory programs that encompass variables that cover main ecosystem services especially valuable for local and regional utilization, by using simple measurable ecological variables. However, many of the measured variables depend on estimations of measured values and the measurement could

The connection to the real social conditions at the slopes at Mt. Kilimanjaro in this case is rather weak due to the fact that detailed investigation of the relationship between society and ecosystems is not done. Assessing and making decisions about ecosystem resources is a normative and political action, and a challenge for an indicator system is then to make the normative dimension visible and an object for deliberative processes. To meet the requirement for local participation the indicator system has to move from a hard ecological approach with only measurable indicators to a practical and soft ecological approach and use an open, conceptual and learning oriented systems engineering approach. This movement from a hard system towards a soft system allows greater application of

The study has demonstrated and elaborated on the use of ecological indicators to support a balanced and mediating management concept in order to increase the influence of local

**4. Discussion** 

is often used. However, Niemeijer and de Groot (2008) argue that moving the framework for environmental indicators from causal chains to causal networks could be a better tool for management decisions and they suggest an enhanced DPSIR-system that could be appropriate. FEMI can be considered as local status indicator, but based on the proximity-totarget concept for principle design of construction, the indicator is working as a performance indicator where performance (status) is compared with a defined ideal typical well developed, natural and healthy forest (the target).

Hence, the intention of FEMI is to enlarge the framework for an ecological forest indicator to include ecological integration and the potential for a larger understanding and dynamic involvement among stakeholders.
