Minimum requirements for sustainable use of forests in national forest programmes. Elements and principles developed for a study of Swiss forest policy

Both the United Nations Conference on Economic Development in 1992 and the European Union have called for the creation of national forest programmes (NFPs) as a means of ensuring the sustainable development of forests. In recent years, international organizations have also discussed and defined several elements that such NFPs should incorporate. Different concepts prevail, however, and policy experts have not yet reached a uniform and coherent understanding of the concept. In this paper, we develop minimum requirements for a Swiss NFP on the basis of a discussion and comparison of different definitions of NFPs and national environmental plans. We argue that a range of process, content and objective-oriented elements should be included. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment