Mainstreaming biodiversity in forestry

Mainstreaming biodiversity is “the process of embedding biodiversity considerations into policies, strategies and practices of key public and private actors to promote conservation and sustainable use of natural resources” (Huntley and Redford, 2014). Mainstreaming biodiversity in forestry involves prioritizing forest polices, plans, programmes, projects and investments that have a positive impact on biodiversity at the ecosystem, species, and genetic levels. It is about integrating biodiversity concerns into everyday forest management practice and finding optimal outcomes across multiple objectives, including productive economic benefits, maintaining or enhancing ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation. This study is divided into four main parts. The first part sets the scene and frames the study. The second part is a review of biodiversity mainstreaming in forest policy and forest management, focusing on forests managed for productive benefits, including ecosystem services. The third part summarizes the progress made on mainstreaming biodiversity in the forest sector through eight country case studies, identifying the remaining gaps and possible solutions. The last part presents the recommendations emerging from this study including the associated case studies. These country case studies show that, on the one hand, much progress has been made towards mainstreaming biodiversity in production forest management. The principles of SFM ensure that, when implemented well, the interests of Indigenous Peoples and local communities are incorporated, and biodiversity values are protected or enhanced. The advantages of community-based forest management for social justice, as well as for community development, appear to be well appreciated and are being actively promoted by several governments.