%0 Research article
%T Operational standards and guidelines for biodiversity management in tropical and subtropical forest plantations – How widely do they cover an ecological framework?
%A Marjokorpi, Antti
%A Salo, Jukka
%D 2007
%J Silva Fennica
%V 41
%N 2
%R doi:10.14214/sf.297
%U https://silvafennica.fi/article/297
%X The development of standards and guidelines to secure sustainable forest  management at different geographical scales has expanded greatly during  the past fifteen years. Most of these efforts, however, have been  formulated for natural forests only; those designed specifically for  forest plantations are relatively few. The global forest plantation area  is expanding rapidly, with obvious positive and negative impacts on  biodiversity. We characterize the key concepts of biodiversity in  tropical and subtropical forest plantations and present an analysis of  how these elements are covered in the eight principal operational  standards and guidelines for sustainable plantation forestry. We also  examine the applicability of standards and guidelines in plantations  established and managed under different initial settings. The results  indicate that the standards and guidelines address certain key elements  of biodiversity comprehensively, meanwhile others are ignored or receive  only slight attention. There is also substantial variation between the  sets in their nature (performance- vs. process-based), scope, congruity  in concepts and hierarchy, and specificity. The standards and guidelines  seldom take into account the varying initial settings for plantation  establishment and the consequent variation in critical factors in  biodiversity conservation and management. We recommend that standards  and guidelines should be developed so as to pay more attention to the  type and operating environment of plantations, to cover all key factors  of biodiversity, and to consider building closer relationships between  the social and ecological aspects of biodiversity.