Evaluation System Proposal for Sustainable Forestry Development in Mexico

Sustainable development is an ecological process that meets the needs, desires and interests of the community, and at the same time achieving conservation of natural resources and an improvement in the condition of the environment. The objectives of this study were: a) to design a hierarchal system of criteria and indicators in order to evaluate the sustainable development at the basin level in cold-temperate forests, and b) to evaluate the actual level of sustainable development in the Chihuahua Basin, which will serve as a basis for later evaluations at the national level and as an international reference. The proposed model is based on three fundamental characteristics: strategic thinking, holistic focus, and democratic participation. From the review and analysis of experiences generated at the state, national, and international levels, the basis for the criteria and indicators hierarchal system for the evaluation of sustainable forestry development in the R?o Papigochi Basin, Chihuahua, Mexico was determined. The hierarchal system of criteria and indicators consists of four areas of study and evaluation: Socio-economic, ecology and environment, institutional policy, and culture and self management. Each area has diverse number of principles, criterions, indicators and verifiers. For the acquisition of the final quantitative structure of the ideal ratings, real ratings, and contributions, software was developed using Delphi programming. The information generated by the hierarchal system structure was entered into the database, the ideal rating decided upon during a participatory workshop, and finally, the rating was obtained from the verifiers in the survey and from direct feedback.