Background

Sustainability is a core principle within Australian forest management and policy. Criteria and indicators are designed to provide a mechanism for defining concepts of sustainability in the context of forest management and establishing objectives to gauge progress. There have been limited investigations in Australia to determine the implications of climate change for C&I.

Purpose

To investigate the implications of a changing climate for the ongoing robustness and utility of Victoria's Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management.

Methods

Indicators were assessed for their relationships with climate, relationships with other indicators, robustness and utility under climate change, and future prospects, including abandonment, improvement, or continued use. An assessment framework was developed to analyse indicator linkages, direct and indirect climate-change influence, and potential modifications.

Results

Twelve of the 45 indicators were considered to be entirely independent of climate change. The utility and robustness of all the remaining 33 indicators was considered to be influenced by a changing climate. For 22 of these, the study recommended no change to the indicator, and for 11 of them, changes were recommended. Five new indicators were also recommended in response to climate change.

Conclusions

1. A decline in predictability was the most common effect of climate change.
2. State indicators were more prone to a decline in their ability to track SFM progress, while action indicators were often uninfluenced, or even improved. Regardless, action indicators may be less effective than state indicators in a changing climate.
3. A shift from a retrospective to prospective insight in C&I is necessary.