One hundred faces of sustainable forest management

Abstract Compared with conventional forest management, sustainable forest management (SFM) is interdisciplinary, heterogeneous, less hierarchical, and more socially accountable. The analytical framework for the economics of SFM is characterized by a pluralistic and integrative nature. An adaptive, contextualized knowledge approach is desirable for operationalizing SFM principles. This approach would employ knowledge as a major vehicle in a two-tiered system in which economic incentives and trade-offs dictate resource allocation and management decisions when substitutable products are involved, but precautionary principles would prevail when the integrity of ecosystems is at stake. Several dilemmas impede the implementation of SFM principles and restrain the use of standard economics tools, but the knowledge will be able to address some of the problems posed by the dilemmas. SFM has ‘one hundred faces’, and the multiple dimensions call for an integrated, adaptive learning approach that promotes connectivity among various pieces on the forest landscape.