LITERATURE REVIEW :The ecosystem approach, ecosystem services and established forestry policy approaches in the United Kingdom

In recent decades, thousands of research from many authors mentioned about approaching methods indicated for natural resources management and biodiversity conservation. More specific in forestry, multipurpose forestry and sustainable forest management are the dominant policies not only in United Kingdom, also including global scale. The Convention on Biological Diversity, ecosystem approach and ecosystem services has become parents method or based methodology for natural resources management.

LITERATURE REVIEW The ecosystem approach, ecosystem services and established forestry policy approaches in the United Kingdom Susanne Raum , Centre for Environmental Policy, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London SW7 1NA, United Kingdom INTRODUCTION In recent decades, thousands of research from many authors mentioned about approaching methods indicated for natural resources management and biodiversity conservation More specific in forestry, multi-purpose forestry and sustainable forest management are the dominant policies not only in United Kingdom, also including global scale The Convention on Biological Diversity, ecosystem approach and ecosystem services has become parents method or based methodology for natural resources management In order to response to the 1919 Forestry Act (Mather, 1991), based on towards state organization and productive plantation forestry, specially in 1990,sustainable forest management applied The Convention on Biological Diversity's (CBD) in ecosystem approaching has become to be effective method of policy in natural resources management and biodiversity conservation with long-term strategies for sustainability develop cause by management and conservation together It meant to be the changing in approaching methods lead to be many positive consequences, such as positive changing in policy and forestry practice Forestry in the United Kingdom has had to adapt its policy approach repeatedly to changing macroeconomic circumstances, fluctuating public opinion, the growing importance given to non-timber benefits of woodlands, and increasing international influences and obligations (Raum and Potter, 2015) Beside those positive consequences which mentioned above, some ecosystem concepts composite to lead to become many debates However we can not deny positive aspects of them and vice versa it could be “another extension or re-packing of existing approaches” Although there are number of reports from international about interrelationship between sustainable forest development and ecosystem approach but it has lack of information about ecosystem approach in United Kingdom So in order to resolve that issue from lack of real information and misunderstanding about approaching methods So with trending of methods that ecosystem approach and sustainable forest development, we will be discussed about establishing the forestry policy This paper which is based on a review of the literature and documents and a survey of expert views aims to just that with the intention to advance understanding of these approaches amongst the academic, policy-making and forestry communities I proceed with a general overview and a summary of the employed approach and methods For the purpose of this analysis, I applied a qualitative and interpretive approach, centered on textual information In an attempt to archive a higher level of understanding of the differences and similarities of the forestry and conservation policy approaches discussed here, I triangulated academic literature and legislative and policy documents with expert interviews Textual data was derived from scholarly work and non-research based material in the form of relevant policy and legislative documents SUMMARY OUTLINE OF THE POLICY APPROACH USED IN THIS ANALYSIS AND THEIR LEGAL BASIS In this part, the author indicated the policy and legal basis of some key policies approach discussed The two well-established forestry policy approaches of multi-purpose and sustainable forestry and the two popular conservation approaches, the ecosystem approach and the ecosystem services concept The author begin each sub-section with a more widely used definition, followed by a summary of some of the most relevant key international, EU and United Kingdom legislation, including ‘soft law’ Then, the author list some of the most significant policy statements Multi-purpose forestry With the definition about multi-purpose in forestry become more popular that: “no formal and generally accepted definition for multi-purpose forestry either in the United Kingdom or elsewhere could be found” The Countryside Act and The 1985 Wildlife and Countryside (Amendment) Act established the first legal required to broader forestry objectives: “for the conservation and enhancement of natural beauty and for the benefit of those resorting to the countryside” (HMSO, 1968) This act supported to sustainable management when they focused on local and conservation in their objectives further more in sporting instrument, tourisms,etc , and for soil and water conservation measures (EEC, 1989), and the 2009 EU Renewable Energy Directive (e.g European Commission, 2009) which included woody biomass Some policy statements that appeared to be no specific forestry policy document on multipurpose or multi-functional forestry other than the 1985 Broadleaved Policy (Forestry Commission, 1985) which aimed at halting further convergence of broadleaved woodlands to conifer plantations Sustainable forest management Sustainable forest management defined : “the stewardship and use of forests and forest lands in a way, and at a rate, that maintains their biodiversity, productivity, regeneration capacity, vitality and their potential to fulfil, now and in the future relevant ecological, economic and social functions, at local, national, and global levels, and that does not cause damage to other ecosystems” (MCPFE, 1993) Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act (HMSO, 2004) Some of these include mechanisms and qualifications for encouraged between the economic, social and environmental objectives, albeit frequently” But not necessary to take this act cause by not effective to environmental issues In that case, the 1992 UN Forest Principles, a ‘non-legally binding authoritative statement of principles for a global consensus on the management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests’, introduced ‘Sustainable Forest Management’ through a set of 15 voluntary principles (UNCED, 1992) The ecosystem approach The ecosystem approach as “a strategy for the integrated management of land, water and living resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way” (CBD, 1995) In 1992, the CBD adopted the ecosystem approach and subsequently developed a more detailed set of 12 ecosystem approach principles which were supported by five operational guidelines (SCBD, 2000) The principles and guidelines were formally adopted in 2000 (SCBD, 2000) The 2006 Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act (HMSO, 2006) which extended this obligation to all public bodies, including the Forestry Commission The use of the ecosystem approach principles has also been advocated in general terms, for instance, in the 2016 Land Use Strategy for Scotland (The Scottish Government, 2016) There are a number of more general policy statements on the ecosystem approach, beginning with the government's 2007 Ecosystem Approach Action Plan (Defra, 2007b) This was taken up by the Forestry Commission in its revised 2011 UK Forestry Standard format which made, for the first time, a more detailed reference to the CBD's ecosystem approach The ecosystem services concept: The MA (2005), which mainstreamed the concept of ecosystem services, provided the currently most frequently used definition and typology for ecosystem goods and services It defined them plainly as “benefits people obtain from ecosystems”, and divided goods and services into the widely used four categories of provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services which include 24 goods and services (MA, 2003) In the context of forests, the 2007 Non-Legally Binding Instrument on all Types of Forests (NLBI), especially, “encourages recognition of the range of values derived from goods and services provided by all types of forests and trees outside forests, as well as ways to reflect such values in the marketplace, consistent with relevant national legislation and policies” (UN, 2007) The 2015 MCPFE Madrid Ministerial Resolution (MCPFE, 2015) also commits itself to “incorporating the value of forests ecosystem services in a green economy”, including through tools such as “market-based instruments and payments for ecosystem services” These transnational ideas were taken up by the United Kingdom government in numerous more general policy statements, beginning with the 2007 Ecosystem Valuation Guide (Defra, 2007a) The Forestry Commission made an explicit reference to ecosystem services in its 2011 UK Forestry Standard (Forestry Commission, 2011) There, it also provided an extensive list of woodland ecosystem services, building on the 2005 MA and the 2011 UK National Ecosystem Assessment (UK NEA, 2011) THE UNDERSTANDING AND INTERPRETATIONS OF FORESTRY STAKEHOLDERS In this part, I examine how the ecosystem approach and the concept of ecosystem services are understood and interpreted in the UK, and in the light of existing forestry models In the UK forestry sector, as elsewhere, there appears to have been a tendency to conflate policy concepts An analysis of the literature and the interviews indicated this to be the case, especially in the 1990s between the established idea of multi-functional forestry and the new concept of sustainable forest management (e.g Mather, 2001), and today, in relation to the ecosystem approach and the ecosystem services concept (e.g Waylen et al., 2014), and between these two concepts and established forestry approaches Quine et al (2013), for instance, observed that many forestry discussants appear to miss the differences between the various concepts, and so tend to use their specific terminology “seamlessly and interchangeably”, arguably layering new ideas on top of existing ones, frequently without understanding the full details (p 863) The outline of the policy and statutory documents in the previous section also hinted at how interlinked and ambiguous these markedly different, but overlapping policy approaches are The interviews confirmed these findings However, the interviews also suggested that this complexity and accumulation of thinking may be navigated differently by people in different communities with different understandings and interests Others, consciously re-brand existing ideas because it better suits their goals and interests Moreover, the interviews indicated that there may be considerable policy fatigue amongst some stakeholders These themes will be examined below through a comparison of the similarities and differences of the four key policy approaches Multi-functional forestry versus sustainable forest management The first challenge considered here appears to have occurred in the 1990s when the sustainable forest management model was introduced to UK forestry Multi-functional forestry had been the guiding principle for forestry policy, particularly in the 1980s The approach encouraged the delivery of more than one forest management objective, placing particular emphasis on the nonmarketed forest benefits of landscape amenity, recreation, and nature conservation which increasingly had to be balanced with the traditional demands of commercial timber production The widening of forestry objectives was seen as a necessary means to increase public acceptability of state-funded reforestation programmes One state forester described the situation at the time: “Foresters in Britain needed to take this approach for the reforestation programme to have credibility and public acceptability … In the 1970s, there was a fairly critical report 1from the government on the cost- benefit analysis and so immediately the forestry industry was more or less saying, how we justify the fact that we are not making a suitable return from our timber? Ah, its’ been all these other things we are delivering, recreation, landscape, biodiversity, nature conservation” Still, under the multi-functional forestry approach, non-timber management objectives remained secondary to timber production (NAO, 1986) Hence, the search for a more balanced approach to forest management continued, leading to the development of the concept of sustainable forest management which aimed at balancing economic, social and environmental aspects of forestry However, when the concept of sustainable forestry was introduced to the UK, forestry stakeholders seemed to have struggled to understand its full meaning Indeed, one interviewee from the private forestry sector noted that “… when sustainability came in, nobody knew what that was …” At the time, the sustainable forestry management concept appeared to have been layered on top of the existing multi-functional forestry model Certainly, in the early noughties, Alexander Mather (2001) observed that sustainable forest management had become almost synonymous to multi-functional or multi-purpose forestry In later years, however, these two concepts tended to be used in paralleled, rather than being seen as identical (Cubbage et al., 2007 ; Slee, 2012) Today, multi-functional and sustainable forestry seem to underpin forestry policy conjointly During interviews, one respondent from one of the conservation organisations, for instance, stated that “Forestry policy, as far as we are concerned and the government is still concerned, is about sustainable multiple benefits forestry …” However, in forestry, the idea of sustainability was not new to Europe, as a similar approach had been practised in several European states since the nineteenth century In fact, the concept of “sustained yield of timber” had received considerable attention in central Europe Its core idea stipulates that the annual timber harvest should equal the annual growth rate, leading to a continuation of forest growth (Wiersum, 1995) https://www.recoftc.org/country/vietnam Multi-functional forestry versus the ecosystem services concept Amacher et al (2014), for instance, claim that currently, the traditional idea of multi-functional forestry and its associated notion of non-marketed forest benefits is regularly replaced with today's ecosystem services terminology This view was confirmed during the interviews, where several respondents maintained that ecosystem services constitute a re-emergence of multifunctional forestry Indeed, it was suggested that foresters frequently assume that ecosystem services are the same as non-marketed forestry benefits One interviewed expert from the private forestry sector, for example, noted that ecosystem services are: “Just a re-iteration, a re-emergence of multi-functional forestry … It is just a new name for multi-purpose forestry, that's all it is” Similarly, a government forester observed that: “In a way, the whole ecosystem services idea is something that, under different governments, foresters have been forced to work on since at least the 1960s It had had different names e.g multiple benefits and non-marketed benefits … So, that sort of idea is more or less ingrained in forester's language and approaches … So, I think, for the forestry sector, the ecosystem services approach was a lot easier to take on than for some other sectors: Foresters could say ‘oh, ecosystem services, hang on, that's just these non-marketed benefits by a different name and somewhat expanded” https://shareok.org/handle/ Unsurprisingly, this layering of concepts and their associated terminology, this accumulation of thinking, that is, when new ideas appear on top of existing ones, but old ones are not necessarily discarded, seems to be navigated better by some people than others Indeed, the analysis of interview transcripts suggested that those forestry related stakeholders who were, as part of their work, regularly exposed to the national level and international environmental policy dialogues and documents, tended to understand the differences better than those operating more on a regional and local practitioner level One of the interviewed state foresters explained this distinction, using the example of ecosystem services: “The language for the practitioners is not that accessible, and so, I think people would not necessarily be able to describe ‘provisioning’, ‘regulating’, ‘cultural’, and ‘supporting’ I mean, they may not even find all of those words I think cultural is one that is fairly commonly understood compared to perhaps provisioning, whether people would then allocate individual services into the right categories is still debatable So, that is at the kind of practitioner level, I think at the policy level, there is a clearer understanding” It also arose during interviews that there was a particularly strong interest in the rebranding of non-marketed benefits into ecosystem services as it holds a greater promise for new sources of funding One respondent from the conservation sector, for instance, stated that: “The idea of ecosystem services is appealing because it sort of holds out the possibility of generating a market and therefore allowing consumers of the benefit to pay to the providers of it” http://www.cgiar.org/ Sustainable forest management versus the ecosystem approach Similarly, particularly in those countries where sustainable forest management has been attempted or applied, there has tended to be a certain confusion around the concept of sustainable forest management and the ecosystem approach Indeed, this problem had been addressed repeatedly since the formal adoption of the ecosystem approach by the CBD in 2000 by various organisations (e.g FAO, 2003 ; UNEP, 2003a) In 2003, the CBD for instance, in a document titled ‘Further Elaborations and Guidelines for the Implementation of the Ecosystem Approach’, accepted sustainable forest management “as a means of applying the ecosystem approach to forests” (UNEP, 2003b, p 34) This view had been confirmed at the Seventh Ordinary Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD, 2004) and was reiterated during the expert interviews in this study Moreover, one state forester pointed out that “… latterly there has been an accord, certainly at a European level, that confirms that sustainable forest management is sort of consistent with an ecosystem approach, as it is understood by the CBD” http://www.cifor.org/forest-management/ The revised 2011 UK Forestry Standard also established that the CBD's 12 ecosystem approach principles “are being applied through the UN principles of sustainable forest management already agreed” (Forestry Commission, 2011, p.8) The same government forester as above explained, in more detail, how in the UK the ecosystem approach principles are already embedded in the existing sustainable forest management framework: “A lot of the principles of the broader ecosystem approach paradigm are already embedded in two existing forestry mechanisms: a) the UK Forestry Standard … which articulates the standard to which things should be done to be assured that they are sustainable; and b) the voluntary certification schemes that have a similar statement of principles but are administered by private bodies or charitable bodies, and result in the equivalent of FSC certification… So, I think that is where, in a way, a lot of the dialogue in forestry might be found, in those sorts of mechanisms” https://www.esa.org/esa/job-postings However, he further pointed out that: “…the ecosystem approach as a kind of phrase is not one that we make a lot of use of in forestry, and yet a lot of what we are doing is consistent with an ecosystem approach… So, I think, certainly, in British forestry, the language is being more around sustainable forest management” Clearly, both the literature and several interviewees considered the established sustainable forestry framework, which has been the essential guiding principle since the early 1990s in UK forestry, as fulfilling the international obligations of the CBD regarding its ecosystem approach commitments http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/sustainabledevelopment Sustainable forest management versus the ecosystem services concept In line with current international trends, Defra, as the lead public agency responsible for forestry in the UK, and the Forestry Commission England and its regional equivalents have, in recent years, explored how best to apply ecosystem services thinking to forestry policy and practice This included various statements of intent and a number of forestry workshops and conferences convened by the Commission and several other organisations (Mason and Mencuccini, 2014) However, since sustainable forest management is continuing to frame forestry policy and practice, there is the potential for yet another conflation of concepts One conservation expert elaborated on these technicalities: “… within forestry, I would say that sustainable forestry hasn’t gone away, it's just that ecosystem services is a new badge on top of it It is not like one concept has been stopped, and we say, “Right, we are going to stop doing sustainable forestry today, tomorrow we ecosystem services” No, that hasn’t been the case … So, ecosystem services are something else that is coming in and it is picking up on some of the things we are already doing … but the sort of previous arguments about how you forestry, they haven’t gone away” “So that [the UK Forestry Standard] hasn’t gone away, other things have come in on top of that So, ecosystem services come into that environment, some of these services are thought about within forestry, they are part of sustainable forest management It is just then a question of how you package it, there may be new services come in, etc …” http://www.esa.org/portland/#.WTtOaOvyhdg Crucially, this practice of packaging or rebranding policies was brought up repeatedly during the interviews It also appears to contribute to policy conflation and even policy fatigue A forester from the conservation sector, for example, stated: “… The previous forestry argument [SFM] which still runs on, it has been a very important component in forestry policy and regulation development… So, ecosystem services are just another thing that has come in, which in forestry you could argue, it is almost rebranding things that are already happening” http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/ Similarly, another interviewed academic added: “Currently, in some places people have rather simplistically bolted it on or altered their language to, kind of, try to accommodate an ecosystem services framework …” Yet, another from the conservation sector noted: “It is the next bandwagon A few years ago people talked all about climate change, now they are talking about ecosystem services … You have new administrations come in, and … the policies get repackaged to suit the new administration, it's kind of normal really … So, if you go back, pre-2012, before May 2010 in England with the general election, the labour administration was very interested in climate change So, anything in forestry was batched up as climate change … Now, less so, now ecosystem services, as well as economic stuff are the flavour of the month Climate change is still part of that, but people repackage it, you know people in the forest industry want to plant trees, so they find a new argument to that” “There are other things as well, talk about the ecosystem approach … sustainable forestry … managing for biodiversity, but also … landscape So, a lot of this isn’t new, the relative emphasis might be in the packaging, in the policy push which might be slightly different, but it is not new” https://books.google.com.vn/books Moreover, and perhaps unsurprisingly, a number of interviewees expressed their unease with such regular change or re-packaging of policies, depended on “the political flavour of the day”, as one respondent put it Indeed, several respondents indicated that there is currently a considerable level of policy fatigue, especially amongst practitioners One interviewee, for example, commented, somewhat cynically: “… [ecosystem services] is the government in-word for now, it will change, there will be other ones” Regardless, and as already pointed out before the established sustainable forest management concept continuous to frame forestry policy and practice in the UK This, however, needs to be understood more generally The forester from one of the conservation organisations stressed this point: “Well …, within [UK] forestry … there has been a concept of sustainable forest management and practical guidance and regulation, trying to work towards that within forestry for a long time It isn’t perfect, it isn’t working brilliantly, and some of that includes ecosystem services already So, it is not kind of a new thing … So, it is more a question of the ‘ecosystem services people’ needing to understand the sectors they are trying to influence and understand where they are coming from and what needs to be done” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com This comment suggests that there may be a need to gain more widespread recognition that sustainable forest management displays many elements of the ecosystem approach in the UK forestry sector and should be promoted as such Moreover, the above indicates that it may be necessary for the responsible government organisation, such as in forestry and planning, where ecosystem-like approaches have already been integrated CONCLUSION In this literature review, I would like to focus on inter-relationship into key forestry and conservation policy approaches In UK forestry, the ecosystem approach and the ecosystem services concept are nothing fundamentally new as novelty in equivalent to sustainable forest management, and the latter is understood as an extension of sustainable forest development and multi-function forestry in natural resources management However, by also touching upon the potentially transformative nature of its general application on forestry, this article seeks to corroborate an emerging view of the established concept of sustainable forest management potentially becoming conflated with the notion of ecosystem services Therefore, an urgent need to address the current conflation of policy approaches and concepts and to gain more widespread acceptance that sustainable forest management continues to frame understandings amongst a wide range of stakeholders Indeed, it was seen as fulfilling the UN Convention's ecosystem approach requirements, as it displays many elements of sustainable forest management, and should be promoted as such Moreover, this literature review concluded that for clear concepts and definitions and equally unambiguous principles for any policy approach in order to ensure that their implementation yield the intended effects The risk of stakeholders involved in their implementation may become disillusioned and policy fatigued must be avoided so that they can undertake their vital tasks unimpeded REFERENCES http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j http://www.cgiar.org/ http://www.cifor.org/forest-management/ http://www.sciencedirect.com/science https://shareok.org/handle/ https://www.esa.org/esa/job-postings http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article ... CONCLUSION In this literature review, I would like to focus on inter-relationship into key forestry and conservation policy approaches In UK forestry, the ecosystem approach and the ecosystem services. .. people obtain from ecosystems”, and divided goods and services into the widely used four categories of provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services which include 24 goods and services. .. National Ecosystem Assessment (UK NEA, 2011) THE UNDERSTANDING AND INTERPRETATIONS OF FORESTRY STAKEHOLDERS In this part, I examine how the ecosystem approach and the concept of ecosystem services