The costs for achieving sustainable forest management at the forest management unit level

The International Tropical Timber Council (ITTC) adopted the Year 2000 Objective in 1991 and a Panel of Experts was subsequently formed to estimate the costs required for achieving that objective. After three attempts, the Panel finally decided that there was no utility in further refining the estimated costs and resources required to achieve the Year 2000 Objective. The Panel further recommended that more effort should instead be directed at deriving a more precise assessment of the costs and resources needed by each producing country rather than attempting to provide a definitive global figure. This paper attempts to provide a conceptual model on estimating the tests and resources required for achieving the Year 2000 Objective at the forest concession level. The cost of forest certification is also included in the model. In the Malaysian context, the forest management unit (FMU) is defined as the forest at the State level, made up of various forest concessions. As such, the total costs and resources required at the FMU level could be derived by aggregating the cost estimates for all the forest concessions within the State.