SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENT (SFM)
Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) or sustainable forestry has been defined by many forest resource professionals and forest scientists using a variety of conceptual models and terms. Thus, there is no single, universal definition of SFM. However, a useful model includes three components: 1) ensuring intergenerational equity in the availability of forest ecosystem resources, 2) managing within the fundamental capacity of ecosystems to provide goods and services while also sustaining a full compliment of native biodiversity, 3) providing a full range of ecosystem goods and services, including biodiversity, watershed functions, and carbon storage, rather than a single dominant use, such as timber (see Keeton 2007).
SFM differs from more traditional sustained yield forestry or multiple-use management, which focus, to varying degrees, on production of individual resources, such as timber, recreation, water, and other forest resources and are primarily “consumptive” being driven by economic objectives. SFM can incorporate conservation and protection of biodiversity and it can also include the methods of traditional forestry such as artificial regeneration, plantations and even-age management — and even clearcutting. However, SFM expands the techniques of managing and harvesting forests by incorporating a broader range of silvicultural alternative (see Keeton 2006 and Franklin et al. 2002) using more holistic planning approaches to sustain productive, healthy forested landscapes. SFM addresses both landscape level and stand level spatial scales and ecosystem attributes, and focuses on critical ecological linkages, such as forest – stream interactions (see Keeton et al. 2007b). The impacts of global climate change (e.g. Keeton et al. 2007a), spread of exotic organisms, and loss of biodiversity are of increasing concern to SFM practitioners.

ECOSYSTEM
An ecosystem is a dynamic complex of plant, animal, and microorganism communities and the abiotic (non-living) environment interacting as a functional unit. Humans are generally viewed as an integral part of ecosystems, although the current intensity of human effects on ecosystems is, of course, the source of considerable concern. Ecosystems can be delineated at multiple, nested spatial scales.

ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
Ecosystem services are the benefits people obtain from ecosystems. These include provisioning services such as food and water; regulating services such as regulation of floods, drought, land degradation, and disease; supporting services such as soil formation and nutrient cycling; and cultural services such as recreational, spiritual, religious and other nonmaterial benefits (MA Conceptual Framework).

WELL-BEING
Human well-being has multiple constituents, including basic material for a good life, freedom of choice and action, health, good social relations, and security. Well-being is at the opposite end of a continuum from poverty, which has been defined as a ‘‘pronounced deprivation in well-being.’’ The constituents of well-being, as experienced and perceived by people, are situation-dependent, reflecting local geography, culture, and ecological circumstances (MA Conceptual Framework)

PAYMENT FOR ECOSYSTEM SERVICES & OTHER INCENTIVES
Payment for ecosystem services schemes reward those whose lands provide the Ecosystem services, with subsidies or market payments from those who benefit (http://www.worldwildlife.org/pes/). READ: Wunder, S., 2005. Payments for Environmental Services: Some Nuts and Bolts. CIFOR Occasional Paper No. 42.

ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS
Ecological Economics addresses the interrelationships between ecological and economic systems in a broad and comprehensive way. It is a professional academic trans-disciplinary field that seeks to integrate the study of humans and nature in a systems based approach

NATURAL CAPITAL
Natural Capital includes both renewable and non-renewable natural resources that provide ecosystem services over time. Valuation of natural capital is controversial. Some researches think that putting monetary value can help us account for real costs of natural capital depletion, others argue that monetary valuation can not account for the real value of natural capital. Part of the controversy also has to do with the methods of valuation. Some consider that at least the tangible, quantifiable goods and services provided by ecosystems can indeed be valued either by asking people how much they are willing to pay for such services (contingent valuation) or by estimating the cost to provide the same services with built capital (replacement cost). Others argue that many of the services that provide the natural capital do not have replacement costs or built capital substitutes, so they are immeasurable.

To understand more about the natural capital and the ecosystem services please read these documents:
Costanza and Daly. 1992. Natural Capital and Sustainable Development. Conservation Biology 6:37-46.
Robert Costanza, Ralph d’Arge, Rudolf de Groot, Stephen Farberk, Monica Grasso, Bruce Hannon, Karin Limburg, Shahid Naeem, Robert V. O’Neill, Jose Paruelo, Robert G. Raskin, Paul Sutton, & Marjan van den Belt. The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital. NATURE | VOL 387 | 15 MAY 1997

SOCIAL CAPITAL
Social capital includes the web of interpersonal connections, institutional arrangements, rules, and norms that facilitate individual human interactions. It is also known as cultural capital.

HUMAN CAPITAL
Human capital includes both the physical labor of humans and the know-how stored in their brains. It is their forms of intelligence, culture and organization.

BUILT CAPITAL
Built capital is constituted by all the machines and infrastructure that compose the human economy. These include buildings, tools, roads and factories. It is also known as manufactured capital.

* To understand more about the 4 capitals mentioned above and their importance to the human economy please read Chapter 1. The Next Industrial Revolution of Paul Hawken, A. L. a. L. H. L. (1999). Natural Capitalism. Creating the next industrial revolution. Colorado, Rocky Mountains Institute.

QUALITY OF LIFE
READ: Costanza et al. 2006. Quality of life: An approach integrating opportunities, human needs, and subjective well-being. Ecological Economics. In press.

INTEGRATED WATERSHED MANAGEMENT (IWM)
IWM planning is a comprehensive multi-resource management planning process, involving all stakeholders within the watershed, who together as a group, cooperatively work towards identifying the resource issues and concerns of the watershed, as well as develop and implement a watershed plan with solutions that are environmentally, socially and economically sustainable (A. K. Gosain1, and Sandhya Rao2. 2004. GIS-based technologies for watershed Management. CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 87, NO. 7).

SUSTAINABILITY
Sustainability encompasses the simple principle of taking from the Earth only what it can provide indefinitely, thus leaving future generations no less than we have access to ourselves. In other words, it is living within the limits or within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems. Sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future. In order to approach sustainability we have to pursue an understanding of the four capitals (Natural, human, social and built) that constitute the economy, the interrelation among the economy, ecology, education and equity, and the urgent necessity of the dematerialization of the economy.

BUSINESS AND THE ENVIRONMENT
It is the interrelation that the economic development must meet with the environment by taking it into consideration. From here, it is derived the importance of the business and the environment relationship. Great business opportunities could be found by looking out the environmental necessities.

ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS
Environmental regulation is a driver that pursues the improvement of the environment by promoting legislations. The format of regulatory mechanisms is different among countries. There could be strict command and control regulations, market incentives, voluntary programs and criminal penalties.
In Europe, SFM is often, but not always, linked to the concept of forest certification by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Pan European Forest Council and other forest certification programs. Since the early 1990s, third-party assessment or green certification of the sustainability of forest management and forest products through a chain of custody (CoC) has been used to promote sound forest management, economic development and stewardship of forest resources throughout the world.

ATELIER
It is a tool for both resolving problems between human and ecological systems, and for developing scientific skills and problem-solving capabilities in developing countries.