Biodiversity Indicators for Sustainable Forestry: Simplifying Complexity

Maintaining biodiversity is a primary goal of sustainable forestry. However, maintaining “life in all its forms” can be daunting to forest managers. “Biodiversity,” as commonly defined, is simply too complex to measure or monitor. The only practical solution is to use indicators. In theory, good indicators are simple to measure and correlate with many other elements of biodiversity so they do not also have to be measured. All sustainable forestry programs use indicators; however, there is much confusion and frustration among forest managers and stakeholders about their usefulness. The primary limitation to selecting effective indicators has to do with process, not science. Here, we propose a framework for selecting biodiversity indictors that will better inform decisionmakers and stakeholders.