Local-level criteria and indicators: An aboriginal perspective on sustainable forest management

As tools for improving the sustainability of forest management, criteria and indicator (C&I) frameworks have grown in popularity over the last decade. Such frameworks have been largely derived from top-down approaches to determining critical measures of forest management success. While useful, they fail to capture many C&I of critical importance to local populations, who experience forest management strategies first hand and who have their own definitions of sustainability. Using archival materials, our research begins to identify one First Nation's forest values and compares these local-level C&I with three well-known C&I frameworks for sustainable forestry. We demonstrate that local-level definitions can provide additional C&I, as well as additional levels of detail to C&I that they share with the national and international frameworks. Both are crucial to developing strategies for sustainable management that meet local as well as broader needs and desires.