Metadata Factsheet

3. Goals and Targets addressed

3a. Goal

N/A

3b. Target

Headline indicator for Target 10. Ensure that areas under agriculture, aquaculture, fisheries and forestry are managed sustainably, in particular through the sustainable use of biodiversity, including through a substantial increase of the application of biodiversity friendly practices, such as sustainable intensification, agroecological and other innovative approaches, contributing to the resilience and long-term efficiency and productivity of these production systems, and to food security, conserving and restoring biodiversity and maintaining nature’s contributions to people, including ecosystem functions and services.

5. Definitions, concepts and classifications

5a. Definition

Indicator definition

“Sustainable forest management” (SFM) has been formally defined, by the UN General Assembly, as follows:

[a] dynamic and evolving concept [that] aims to maintain and enhance the economic, social and environmental values of all types of forests, for the benefit of present and future generations” (Resolution A/RES/62/98)

The indicator is composed of five sub-indicators that measure progress towards all dimensions of sustainable forest management. The environmental values of forests are covered by three sub-indicators focused on the extension of forest area, biomass within the forest area and protection and maintenance of biological diversity, and of natural and associated cultural resources. Social and economic values of forests are reconciled with environmental values through sustainable management plans. The subindicator provides further qualification to the management of forest areas, by assessing areas which are independently verified for compliance with a set of national or international standards.

The sub-indicators are:

1. Annual forest area change rate
2. Above-ground biomass in forest
3. Proportion of forest area within legally established protected areas
4. Proportion of forest area under a long-term management plan
5. Forest area under an independently verified forest management certification scheme

A dashboard is used to assess progress related to the five sub-indicators. The adoption of the dashboard approach aims at ensuring consideration of all dimensions of sustainable forest management and provides for clear view of areas where progress has been achieved.

Other key concepts and definitions:

Forest Land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 5 meters and a canopy cover of more than 10 percent, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ. It does not include land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban land use.

• Forest is determined both by the presence of trees and the absence of other predominant land uses. The trees should be able to reach a minimum height of 5 meters.
• Includes areas with young trees that have not yet reached but which are expected to reach a canopy cover of at least 10 percent and tree height of 5 meters or more. It also includes areas that are temporarily unstocked due to clear-cutting as part of a forest management practice or natural disasters, and which are expected to be regenerated within 5 years. Local conditions may, in exceptional cases, justify that a longer time frame is used.
• Includes forest roads, firebreaks and other small open areas; forest in national parks, nature reserves and other protected areas such as those of specific environmental, scientific, historical, cultural or spiritual interest.
• Includes windbreaks, shelterbelts and corridors of trees with an area of more than 0.5 hectares and width of more than 20 meters.
• Includes abandonmethed shifting cultivation land with a regeneration of trees that have, or are expected to reach, a canopy cover of at least 10 percent and tree height of at least 5 meters.
• Includes areas with mangroves in tidal zones, regardless whether this area is classified as land area or not.

• Includes rubberwood, cork oak and Christmas tree plantations.
• Includes areas with bamboo and palms provided that land use, height and canopy cover criteria are met.
• Excludes tree stands in agricultural production systems, such as fruit tree plantations, oil palm plantations, olive orchards and agroforestry systems when crops are grown under tree cover. Note: Some agroforestry systems such as the “Taungya” system where crops are grown only during the first years of the forest rotation should be classified as forest.

Above-ground biomass All living biomass above the soil including stem, stump, branches, bark, seeds, and foliage.

• In cases where forest understorey is a relatively small component of the aboveground biomass carbon pool, it is acceptable to exclude it, provided this is done in a consistent manner throughout the inventory time series.

Protected areas Areas especially dedicated to the protection and maintenance of biological diversity, and of natural and associated cultural resources, and managed through legal or other effective means.

Forest area within protected areas Forest area within formally established protected areas independently of the purpose for which the protected areas were established.

• Includes IUCN Categories I – IV
• Excludes IUCN Categories V-VI

Forest area with management plan Forest area that has a long-term documented management plan, aiming at defined management goals, which is periodically revised.

• A forest area with management plan may refer to forest management unit level or aggregated forest management unit level (forest blocks, farms, enterprises, watersheds, municipalities, or wider units).
• A management plan must include adequate detail on operations planned for individual operational units (stands or compartments) but may also provide general strategies and activities planned to reach management goals.
• Includes forest area in protected areas with management plan.

Independently verified forest management certification Forest area certified under a forest management certification scheme with published standards and is independently verified by a third-party.

Units of measure

5b. Method of computation

National data on forest area, biomass stock, forest area within protected areas, and forest area under management plan are reported directly by countries to FAO for pre-established reference years. Based on the country reported data, FAO then makes country-level estimates of the forest area net change rate using the compound interest formula. The proportion of forest area within protected area and under management plan is calculated using the reported areas for each reference year and the forest area for year 2015.

Data on forest area under an independently verified forest management certification scheme are reported to FAO by the head offices of respective forest certification scheme. Reported data include the area certified under each certification scheme, as well as areas that are double-certified by the two schemes. That allows for estimating the total certified forest area, adjusted for double certified area.

No dashboard traffic lights are made at country level.

5c. Data collection method

Sub-indicators 1 to 4

• Data on these sub-indicators are collected through FAO’s Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) programme. Officially nominated national correspondents and their teams prepare the country reports for the assessment. Some prepare more than one report as they also report on dependent territories. For the remaining countries and territories where no information is provided, a report is prepared by FAO using existing information and a literature search.
• All data are provided to FAO by countries in the form of a country report through an online platform following a standard format, which includes the original data and reference sources and descriptions of how these have been used to estimate the forest area for different points in time. The online platform was used for all data entry, review and quality control.
• In order to obtain internationally comparable data, countries are requested to provide national categories and definitions, and in case these are different than the FAO categories and definitions, countries are requested to perform a reclassification of national data to correspond to the FAO categories and definitions and to document this step in the country report. Countries are also requested to use interpolation or extrapolation of national data in order to provide estimates for the specific reporting years.

Sub-indicator 5

• Data are annually reported by the certification bodies to FAO and consolidated into estimates of total certified forest area, which are made available to the countries through the FRA platform where country officials can view the data that are being submitted

5d. Accessibility of methodology

The methodology for the SDG 15.2.1 indicator is published in SDG indicators metadata on UNSD website at https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/

5e. Data sources

Sub-indicators 1 to 4

• Data are collected by FAO through the Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA). Assessments have been carried out at regular intervals since 1946 and are now produced every five years. The latest of these assessments, FRA 2020, contains information for 236 countries and territories on about 60 variables related to the extent of forests, their conditions, uses and values for several points in time.

Sub-indicator 5

• Currently, forest certification by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) are included in the data submissions. The latter includes several national/regional certification schemes that have been endorsed according to the PEFC standards.
• Data on forest certification are submitted annually to FAO by the head offices of the respective forest certification scheme. Data include the area certified by each scheme, as well as areas that are double certified by the two schemes. That allows for estimating the total certified forest area, adjusted for double certified area.

5f. Availability and release calendar

Data with updated time series and including year 2020 was released in July 2020 as part of FRA 2020 dataset. Next release of a complete FRA dataset is scheduled for 2025. More frequent reporting on forest area and other key indicators will be applied from 2024 onward. Data on forest certification is updated annually.

Data availability:

The Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020 collected data from 236 countries and territories.

5g. Time series

sub-indicators 1 to 4.

• 2000, 2010, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020

for sub-indicator 5.

• 2000, 2010, 2015, and every year since

5h. Data providers

sub-indicators 1 to 4

• provided by the countries through a global network of officially nominated national correspondents. For the countries and territories which do not have a national correspondent, a report is prepared by FAO using previously reported information, literature search, remote sensing or their combination.

sub-indicator 5,

• forest certification scheme, data are provided by head offices of respective forest certification scheme

5i. Data compilers

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

5j. Gaps in data coverage

The geographical coverage of each sub-indicators is provided by region in the above table.

5k. Treatment of missing values

At country level

• For countries and territories where no information was provided to FAO for FRA 2020 (47 countries and territories representing 0.5 percent of the global forest area), a report was prepared by FAO using existing information from previous assessments, literature search, remote sensing or a combination of two or more of them.

For the above-ground biomass sub-indicator, imputation of the missing values has been carried out by FAO for those countries with at least one data point in the time series. The value of the data point closest in time was used as imputed value. For those countries where no value was reported for any of the reporting years, no imputation was done and the values for all years were set as “Not Available”.

At regional and global levels

• For those sub-indicators where there are gaps in the data set, only the countries with complete data for the relevant years (either provided by the countries or estimated by FAO) are included in the regional and global aggregates

6. Scale

6a. Scale of use

Scale of application: Global, Regional, National

Scale of data disaggregation/aggregation: national data was aggregated to form regional and global indicator

Global/ regional scale indicator can be disaggregated to national level:

National data is collated to form global indicator: Yes

6b. National/regional indicator production

Detailed methodology and guidance on how to prepare the country reports through an online reporting platform and to convert national data according to national categories and definitions to FAO’s global categories and definitions is found in the documents “Guidelines and Specifications” (www.fao.org/3/I8699EN/i8699en.pdf) and “Terms and Definitions” (www.fao.org/3/I8661EN/i8661en.pdf).

FAO supports the reporting process through capacity development on reporting methodology and remote sensing. The reporting platform provides easy access to relevant and freely available global remote sensing data sets and products.

6c. Sources of differences between global and national figures

For those sub-indicators where there are gaps in the data set, only the countries with complete data for the relevant years (either provided by the countries or estimated by FAO) are included in the regional and global aggregates.

6d. Regional and global estimates & data collection for global monitoring

6d.1 Description of the methodology

Sub-indicator 1 - Annual forest area change rat

Unit: Percent

Reference period: 2010-2020

Method of estimation: Compound annual change rate formula as follows:

where:

r = compound annual change rate for the period t1 -t2

ti = time i (year)

AFt1= forest area at t1

AFt2 = forest area at t2

Translation to dashboard/traffic light

The following flowchart explains the logic behind the translation of this indicator to a dashboard/traffic light:

The forest area change direction is determined by examining the value of the forest area change rate for the most recent period, a negative value indicate a loss of forest area, a zero value means that forest area is stable, and a positive value means that forest area has increased. The change in forest area loss rate is based on a comparison of the annual forest area change rate for the period 2010-2020 with the annual forest area change rate for the period 2000-2010 (baseline). If forest area change rate is negative (= forest loss) then: annual forest area loss rate = - (annual forest area change rate)

Comments:

This traffic light takes into consideration both the direction of forest area change (if forest area increases or decreases) as well as changes in the rate of forest area loss – the latter important in order to indicate progress among countries that are losing forest area but manage to reduce the loss rate.

The baseline should be updated every 5 years. In 2020 a new baseline was calculated for the period 2000-2010 based on updated country data.

Sub-indicator 2 – Above-ground biomass in forest

Unit: tonnes/hectare

Reference year: Latest reporting year

Method of estimation: Reported directly by countries

Translation to dashboard/traffic light:

The indicator value for the latest reporting year is compared with the indicator value reported for 2010.

The ratio (r) between the current indicator value and the value reported for 2010 is calculated; r>1 means an increase in stock per hectare, r<1 means a decrease while 1 indicates no change. A narrow interval for r has been established to indicate a stable condition, and traffic-light colors are assigned as follows:

Sub-indicator 3 – Proportion of forest area within legally established protected areas

Unit: Percent

Reference year: Latest reporting year

Method of estimation:

Where:

AFP = Forest area within legally established protected areas

AF = Total forest area

Translation to dashboard/traffic light:

The indicator value for latest reporting year is compared with the indicator value reported for 2010.

The ratio (r) between the current indicator value and the value reported for 2010 is calculated; r>1 means an increase in forest area within protected areas, r<1 means a decrease while 1 indicates no change. A narrow interval for r has been established to indicate a stable condition, and traffic-light colors are assigned as follows:

Comment:

Using forest area in 2015 as denominator for estimating this indicator ensures that the time series of percentages reflect real changes in the forest area within legally established protected areas and is not affected by changes (losses or gains) in total forest area.

Sub-indicator 4 – Proportion of forest area under a long-term forest management plan

Unit: Percent

Reference year: Latest reporting year

Method of estimation:

Where:

AFMP = Forest area under a long-term management plan

AF = Total forest area

Translation to dashboard/traffic light: The indicator value for latest reporting year is compared with the indicator value for previous reporting year for assessment of continuity of progress since last report.

The ratio (r) between the current indicator value and the value reported for 2010 is calculated; r>1 means an increase in areas under forest management plan, r<1 means a decrease while 1 indicates no change. A narrow interval for r has been established to indicate a stable condition, and traffic-light colors are assigned as follows:

Comment:

Using forest area in 2015 as denominator for estimating this indicator ensures that the time series of percentages reflect real changes in the forest area under forest management plan and is not affected by changes (losses or gains) in total forest area.

Sub-indicator 5 – Forest area under an independently verified forest management certification scheme

Unit: Thousand hectares

Reference year: Latest reporting year (as of June 30)

Method of estimation: Data is collected directly from the databases of each certification scheme and provided to countries for validation.

Translation to dashboard/traffic light: The indicator value for latest reporting year is compared with the indicator value for previous reporting year for assessment of continuity of progress since last report.

The ratio (r) between the current indicator value and the previously reported value is calculated; r>1 means an increase in areas under an independent forest management certification scheme, r<1 means a decrease while 1 indicates no change. A small interval for r has been established to indicate a stable condition, and traffic-light colors are assigned as follows:

Comments:

Using June 30 as the date for reporting, allows for the certification bodies to have their databases updated so they can provide information to FAO by end of the year, and then be included in the annual reporting to SDG in the beginning of the following year.

6d.2 Additional methodological details

See above

6d.3 Description of the mechanism for collecting data from countries

7. Other MEAs, processes and organisations

7a. Other MEA and processes

The indicator is the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicator 15.2.1

7b. Biodiversity Indicator Partnership

No

10. Data reporter

10a. Organisation

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

10b. Contact person(s)

Anne Branthomme, anne.branthomme@fao.org