Forest Management Planning in Congo Basin RainforestsCombined Planning System – A New Approach for Sustainable ForestManagement

Rainforests are among the most diverse and widespread ecosystems on earth. They providemankind with a wide range of economic, social and environmental benefits. However, theseforests are increasingly being threatened among other causes by unsustainable loggingpractices. The rapid rate of degradation and loss of tropical rain forests is one of the world’smost prominent environmental concerns. Efforts around the world are focused on achievingsustainable forest management since the 1992 United Nations (UN) declaration (Rio deJaneiro), an approach that balances social, economic and environmental objectives. A resultof these efforts is the fact that the legal and policy environment is improving in manycountries in Central Africa, as evidenced by political commitment at the highest level, by thedevelopment of national forest programmes throughout the sub regions, and by progressivenew legislation in many countries. Regional partnerships provide also a solid framework forappropriate action. However, the investment in forestry remains far below what is required;the capacity to enforce laws and to implement programmes effectively remains weak in manycountries. Consequently, in most tropical countries, forest management planning has beenimplemented insufficiently; only 1-5% of the tropical forests are mentioned to be sustainablymanaged. This situation is more critical in Central Africa, where the extraction volumesexceed production of about 174 %. Until now there have been crucial limitations in the designof forest management plans and their implementation. The reasons for this are related bothto the insufficient planning techniques and the surrounding environment such as enormousdiversity of the resource, socio-economic conditions and the inadequate institutional andlegal framework. In this context, there is a need for developing a simple and practical forestmanagement planning system that could be easily implemented and represents a usefulsustainable forest management tool. The main objective of the thesis is to build