Landscapes Forest and Global Change - ESA - Escola Superior ...

N. Stryamets et al. 2010. Role of non-wood forest products for sustainable development of rural communities
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2004, Elbakidze and Angelstam 2009). At the United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development (UNCED) in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro it was declared that the promotion of and use
of non-wood forest products is an important part of sustainable development (UNCED, 1992).
SFM is supported by different processes and organizations, taking into account the specific
forest conditions (The Montréal Process 2007, McDonalda and Lane 2004, Rametsteiner and
Mayer 2004) The Montreal Process (MP) developed SFM principles for the temperate and
boreal forests of non-European countries (The Montréal Process 2007).
Sustainable forest management (SFM), an important part of sustainable development as a
societal process at the Pan-European level, is described as “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” in the Helsinki Resolution which is the European level
process to develop the SFM concept (MCPFE 1993).
Criteria and indicators for SFM in European counties were developed by the Ministerial
Conferences on Protection of Forest in Europe (MCPFE 1993, MCPFE 1998a, MCPFE 1998b,
McDonalda and Lane 2004). The European criteria and indicators provide guidelines for SFM
at the national and sub-national levels, and is an attempt to operationalise and complement the
existing definition of SFM (Lazdinis, 2000).
Management of NWFPs is a component of SFM according to international policy documents,
such as, for example, MCPFE resolutions. It is declared in the Helsinki resolution (MCPFE
1993) that the interest of and demand for non-wood forest products has been increasing and
encouraged as a part of sustainable management of forests (MCPFE 1993). It also promotes the
cooperation of the forestry sector in developed countries with countries with economic in
transition (MCPFE 1993).
According to the Resolution L2 (MCPFE 1998a), criteria 3 is to maintain and encourage
productive functions of forests, which include both wood and non-wood products. The
descriptive indicators of the criteria 3 require the development of management plans for NWFP
(MCPFE 1998a). At the 4th Ministerial conference in Vienna the criteria and indicators were
improved with the aim to increase benefits of rural livelihoods from forests (MCPFE 2003,
Rametsteiner and Mayer 2004, Wang 2004) and included values and quantity of non-wood
goods from forests and other wooded lands (Rametsteiner and Mayer 2004). Vienna Resolution
2 highlighted the importance of the promoting the use of wood and NWFPs (MCPFE 2003).
Analysis of national forest policy documents and management regulations
Ukraine has recently joined the process of developing national SFM principles, which have
been adopted into the national legislation and forest programs (Forestry code of Ukraine 2006,
Lisy Ukrainy, 2009). The main trend of the forest legislation development has been to provide a
balance between the conservation of forest ecosystems, and sustainable multi-purpose use of
forests (Angelstam et al. 2009). The outcomes of forest sector reformation, which began in 1991,
were new Forest Code adaptation in 2006 and elaboration of the State Program “Forests of
Ukraine during 2010-2015” in 2009. In Ukraine forest management is conducted according to
the Forest Code and within the framework defined by the State Programme “Forest of Ukraine
in 2010-2015”.
The Forestry Code of Ukraine (2006) consists of 110 articles, of which four include information
about NWFPs and their management, these are called secondary forest products. There is,
however, neither an explanation of what kinds of non-wood products that are included into this
category, nor how they should be managed (Forestry Code of Ukraine 2006). The direct use of
Forest Landscapes and Global Change-New Frontiers in Management, Conservation and Restoration. Proceedings of the IUFRO Landscape Ecology
Working Group International Conference, September 21-27, 2010, Bragança, Portugal. J.C. Azevedo, M. Feliciano, J. Castro & M.A. Pinto (eds.)
2010, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Bragança, Portugal.