Tropical forests are under unprecedented pressure for conversion to pastoral and agricultural land or to plantations (including for biofuel production) and from the supply and extraction of forest goods and services, including timber and bushmeat. To preserve them, much effort has gone into setting up and managing a network of protected areas because, for various constituencies, conservation is best served by outright protection, occasionally after initial extraction of valuable species. Others, however, see this as an ultimately limited option. They argue the need to include sustainable forest management, balancing productivity and offtake with efforts to conserve biodiversity, maintain vital forest functions, and continue supplying various social and economic benefits, across various scales. Continuing to search for a globally accepted definition of sustainable forest management seems pointless. Even if we could agree on what we mean by “sustainable,” and that is questionable, applying the concept and achieving the desired outcomes face many problems, as the papers in this special feature have shown. Trying to satisfy multiple and often disparate objectives, each with differing timeframes and spatial extents, is one complication. Attempting to accommodate varying environmental, economic, social, and political conditions, many of them outside the reach of forest management, is another. Some key influences on both forest productivity and human affairs, such as a region’s geology and continental location, create background conditions that management cannot circumvent (Hammond and Zagt 2006). Rather than aiming for an unattainable and contentious ideal, it may be more useful to strive for continuous improvement to achieve better outcomes when the best is unachievable. Such an approach would tailor both research and management to the relevant features of the environment and background conditions. Research could also be scaled more appropriately, taking into account more realistic local ecological and management timeframes and spatial extents. By looking for ongoing improvement in management, rather than holding to some distant and probably unattainable ideal, planners, managers, and researchers may be better placed to deliver more sustainable use of forest resources.
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