• Challenges
• The IMFN Secretariat and Objectives
• Internationalizing the Network
• Where to find model forests

The challenges facing natural resource managers today, and indeed all of society, are inherently complex as conflicting societal demands and values compete with one another against a backdrop of limited and dwindling resources.

In 1987, the Brundtland Commission Report clearly described the precarious and growing imbalance between the growth of humanity and the capacity of the Earth to sustain this growth. Six years later, at the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), world leaders set in motion a chain of policy-level events targeted at finding workable solutions to achieving sustainable development.

As a result, within the forestry sector itself, an array of processes began, with many countries subsequently demonstrating new and innovative approaches to forest management. Not surprisingly, several of these new approaches revealed parallel thinking on the nature of sustainability, and potential strategies for effective resource conservation.One initiative directly inspired by the challenges laid down during UNCED was the International Model Forest Network Program (IMFN), announced by Canada at the 1992 Rio Conference. Its origins were rooted in the Canadian Model Forest Network, itself created in 1991.

The IMFN represented a major commitment to build an international partnership of countries and institutional partners to work to translate the policy of sustainable forest management (SFM) into practice, at an operational level in ways that would benefit the people, communities and interests that depend upon forests and their many values.

The IMFN was built upon the firm belief that forests can be managed in a sustainable way to safeguard the economic, environmental, and social needs of current and future generations. It assumes that an inclusive partnership of all agencies, organizations, communities, and individuals who use the forest resource, each having their own specific understanding and appreciation of it, can together create the conditions that will lead to improved and sustainable utilization of all forest resources.

The IMFN was created to stimulate the field-level application of new concepts and ideas in sustainable forest management, and to create opportunities to share these experiences. The IMFN is supported by a Secretariat housed at the Ottawa-based International Development Research Centre (IDRC). Since its 1995 launch, the IMFN Secretariat — together with partners and collaborators such as UNDP and FAO — has succeeded in building a global network of landscape-level, partnership-based model forests.

This global network is engaged in supporting and facilitating the development of locally relevant and workable approaches to SFM to benefit all stakeholders, from local communities to national policy makers.

Working to achieve sustainable forest management is a fundamentally optimistic endeavour. It assumes that there are solutions, and that they are accessible to society—if society chooses to seek them out. Experience to date, including the continued growth of the Network, supports this optimism.

The IMFN Secretariat and Objectives

The IMFN Secretariat is the executor of the IMFN program as defined by its Board of Directors, which is comprised of donor and regional model forest representatives. The role of the Secretariat is to strengthen and expand the Network and, at the site level, to support new and existing model forests (MFs) in the following areas:

• technical and logistical issues in establishing and operating Mfs
• networking between sites and regions, transfer of technology and know-how
• assistance in resource expansion
• advocacy and promotion
• communications
• targeted program support (as available)
• partnership development and capacity-building

The IMFN's objectives are to:

• To foster international cooperation and exchange of ideas on the concept of and practical experience in sustainable forest management
• To facilitate international cooperation in field-level applications of sustainable forest management
• To use these concepts, experiences, and applications to support ongoing international discussions on the principles, criteria, and policies related to sustainable forest management

The IMFN Secretariat provides assistance through regional and global network meetings, support for training and extension work, specialized workshops and the dissemination of information. While the IMFNS is not a grant-making institution, it does manage a small program fund earmarked for issues and areas of high priority.

While every model forest differs in its history of land use and the management concerns each faces, there is a range of common issues of special significance to the Secretariat, including: partnership and capacity-building; poverty alleviation and economic diversification; measuring and assessing progress toward SFM; development and demonstration of best forest management practices; monitoring and evaluation; governance; and conflict management.

The IMFNS is currently active in Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia, Africa and Russia. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the Network’s first regional centre was launched in October 2002.

In the case of the Regional Model Forest Centre for Latin America and the Caribbean (RMFC), the IMFNS supports regional model forest sites through the Centre based upon an agreed program of work. This program reflects priorities identified at the site level. In addition, the IMFNS and RMFC are represented on one another’s boards of directors.

Where there is no regional centre (as is the case in Africa and Asia), the IMFNS supports site-level activities through nationally designated representatives or in conjunction with other institutional players who actively promote model forests, such as FAO in Asia.

To date, model forests have been established in:

Argentina, Brazil*, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica*, Dominican Republic*, Indonesia, Mexico, Myanmar, Philippines, Russia, Sweden, Thailand and the United States.

* model forest in development

Other countries pursuing the model forest concept include:

Cuba, Cameroon, India, Japan, Panama, Peru.