Key information for forest policy decision-making - Does current reporting on forests and forestry reflect forest discourses?

Abstract

Forest discourses help identify forest-related issues. They aim to aid policy and decision-makers in understanding forest-related challenges and opportunities better so that they may initiate possible strategies and tactics to tackle them. Ideally, information requirements for the forest discourses would be translated into measurable variables, being the basis for collecting, analysing, and reporting data and information. Our study examined the connection between major international forest reporting processes and forest discourses. We analysed summaries and key findings for policy makers of five recent major forest reports. We compared their focus with forest discourses on climate change, forest conservation, deforestation, forest decline, illegal logging, industrial forestry/bioeconomy, traditional knowledge, woody biomass production, and innovative wood-based biofuels. The paper explores how the forest discourses are reflected in the surveyed documents and closely examines the specific focus areas in the summaries for policy makers. The results show that most forest discourses are generally well-represented, albeit with different foci. The discourse on illegal logging could not be identified in any investigated documents, even though it remains a significant concern for international forest policy. Keywords related to traditional knowledge and woody biomass production could not be found in two of the analysed findings. All analysed summaries and key findings mention issues related to the climate change discourse topic. However, they lack information on emissions from deforestation, carbon dioxide emissions and carbon budgets, which are high in political discussions. The paper highlights how discourse issues have gained in complexity both topic-wise and regarding the reporting obligations, as policy and decisionmakers require more timely and comprehensive information about the status' and trends of forests.