CONCLUSION
Despite several decades of attempts to improve forest management in Southeast Asia, the implementation of sustainable forest management (SFM) in a significant part of the region’s production forests still has a long way to go. Continued rapid forest loss from the timber estate indicates that Southeast Asian governments, in general, no longer consider production forestry in natural forests to be of major economic importance. Most of the easily accessible timber has been removed, and many timber concessions are in their second or third logging cycle. More intensive production in fast-growing plantations is now often favored over production forestry in natural forests.
Still, there are several reasons for guarded optimism. There is increasing recognition of the important role played by natural forests in the provision of environmental and social services. The frequency of natural disasters such as landslides and floods has made the people of Southeast Asia poignantly aware of the importance of forests in preventing these disasters. At the same time, market pressures create a demand for sustainably managed timber. Since the Global Climate Change Conference in Bali in December 2007, there has been heightened focus on production forests as potential carbon sinks and the payments for avoided deforestation that would go with them.
The key to the success of SFM in Southeast Asia is continued support for the various positive trends discussed here. Nongovernmental organizations play an important and growing role in increasing the implementation of SFM. Although some nongovernmental organizations remain opposed to any industrial exploitation of forests, many others actively support the timber industry and are helping to improve management. Nongovernmental organizations, together with research organizations, should continue to provide technical input toward making codes of practice more specific and developing improved tools to monitor the implementation of SFM, as well as to implement objective monitoring programs themselves. They also keep pressure on governments to formalize codes of practice and other guidelines in a national legal framework. In addition, nongovernmental organizations play an important role in further increasing the demand for sustainably managed timber products, either by directly influencing markets or by lobbying government to regulate the import of unsustainably produced timber products.