Introduction

Abstract

This chapter gives an overview of the various activities at the International level, by the United Nations and other bodies to promote the sustainable management of the world’s forests since the Earth Summit in 1992. It discusses the emergence of the Sustainable Development Goals and suggests that the Indicators set to monitor progress in achieving the goals are not really meaningful and will nort enable progress to be assessed in 2020 or 2030. Certification is currently the only meaningful indicator available, but it too has serious limitations due to its restriction to production forest and the fact that it takes no account of “leakage” of unsustainable practices to non-certified forests.