Suivi national de la biodiversité forestière : état des lieux, pistes d’amélioration

Under the Forest Europe process initiated in 1993 in Helsinki at the second Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe, since 1995, France has published sustainable management indicators for forests in metropolitan France every five years. These indicators under criterion 4 focus on biodiversity and deal with thematic areas ranging from the diversity of species to threatened forest species, protected forests, naturality, etc., all the way to the fragmentation of the landscape. Using the outcomes of the scientific consultations launched in 2006 by GIP Ecofor on the topic of forest biodiversity indicators, we provide a tentative method for structuring tracking of forest biodiversity: identification of goals by category of user, field of biodiversity to be tracked, scales used, scientific significance and validity and continual improvement of indicators. The authors then analyse the current indicators under criterion 4 in relation to two main goals: assessing the state and dynamics of forest biodiversity and evaluating the effect of forest policies and silvicultural practises (which derive in part from those policies) on biodiversity. The current system already provides considerable data but needs improvement. As the situation stands, indicators under criterion 4 are not adequate either for tracking the state of forest biodiversity and the pressure to which it is subjected or for guiding the policies that impact it. We offer areas for improvement so as to more fully reflect the various taxonomic, genetic, functional and ecosystemic components of forest biodiversity, placing the emphasis on the most important stakes in terms of ecology and policy. For the monitoring system to become a true policy support tool, we argue in favour of a system structure that follows a pressure-state-response (PSR) framework, making sure that triplets balance of the PSR system indicators is maintained for each ecological or political stake identified.