The need to provide food, water, timber, fiber and fuel to a global population that recently surpassed seven billion is driving worldwide alterations to forests, waterways, air quality, as well as farmlands. In 2005, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment reported that one quarter of the earth’s terrestrial surface is devoted to cultivated systems, i.e. at least thirty percent of the landscape is utilized for activities like cropping, shifting cultivation, confined livestock production, or freshwater aquaculture. Man’s activities have permanently altered the structure and functioning of ecosystems to the extent that nearly two thirds of the services provided by nature for human well-being and economic development are found to be in decline worldwide
Agenda 21 essentially provides guidance on how to pursue a development that is socially, economically and environmentally sustainable in the 21st century. Many national governments at that time made a commitment to promote it at all levels within their countries; and implicit was the need to protect and restore the vitality of endangered (and shared) ecosystems within their territories (Bressers & Rosenbaum, 2003). Yet, more than a decade later, the degradation of natural resources and ecosystems has not slowed. In 2005, a warning was issued on the risk of an ecological collapse in many regions of the world if the trend continues. The task to be addressed is therefore two-fold – environmental conservation objectives and economic development
For example, Forest policies from the early 1900s until the mid-1970s were geared toward the industrialization of the forestry sector. This concentrated forest benefits to the privileged few, and worsened upland poverty and forest depletion (Pulhin, 1996). Industrial extraction since the post-WWII period and more unabated timber harvesting into the 1970s left only a 23% forest cover by 1987. A shift to protection, rehabilitation, and development of forestlands was introduced in the 1980s and log production gradually decreased through some degree of compliance with annual allowable cuts for each logging concession. Later on, logging became officially prohibited in primary forests, in areas over 1000 meters in elevation and in areas with slopes of 50% or more (Guiang, 2001). Today, large no of forests covered by various logging arrangements, such as Timber License Agreement, Integrated Forest Management Agreement, and Socialized Industrial Forest Management Agreement.