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Criteria and Indicators

The Montreal Process Criteria and Indicators for the Conservation and Sustainable Management of Temperate and Boreal Forests. Publication cover.

The seven criteria and 54 indicators of the Montreal Process provide a common framework for member countries to describe, monitor, assess, and report on national forest trends and progress toward sustainable forest management. They also provide a common understanding within and across countries of what is meant by sustainable forest management and may be understood to constitute an implicit definition of sustainable forest management at the country level provide has become a key tool for defining, measuring, tracking and reporting on national progress toward sustainable forest management.

The seven Montreal Process criteria characterize the essential components of sustainable forest management (e.g. biodiversity conservation).

Each criterion is characterized by a set of quantitative and qualitative indicators, which provide a way to measure or describe the criterion. When measured periodically over time, they indicate change in trends in conditions relevant to sustainable forest management, including environmental, social, economic, and policy conditions. Monitoring these changes provides information needed to evaluate a country's progress toward sustainable forest management; information that is essential to making informed forest policy decisions.

For more information about the Montreal Process framework of criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management, see the following documents.

Current Set

Set for 2013

Set for 2010

Set for 2003