The trend towards improved forest management will be increasingly influenced by international pressures.

One way to look at the impact of international agreements is to ask how they have changed the way we think of forests and forest issues. There is broad consensus that over the past 50 years, and particularly since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the trend towards sustainable forest management has been strongly influenced by international guidance, whether arising from voluntary partnerships or international treaties.

In Canada, all levels of government pursue the goal of sustainable forest management. They recognize the connections that exist among the economic, environmental, social and cultural aspects of forest use and conservation. Enshrining sustainable forest management in legislation and policies can, in part, be linked to the guidance arising from the international forest policy dialogue.

Canada has shared its knowledge and expertise in sustainable forest management with the international community through the Montréal Process Working Group on Criteria and Indicators (C&I) for the Conservation and Sustainable Management of Temperate and Boreal Forests. Based in Santiago, Chile since its creation in 1995, this group has 12 member countries representing 90 percent of the world's temperate and boreal forests. In addition to improving the capacity of countries to report on the sustainability of their forest practices, the working group is promoting greater world recognition of the use and value of the Criteria and Indicators Framework of Sustainable Forest Management. (See also special article The Montréal Process Reports on Criteria and Indicators)

Another form of partnership is reflected in bilateral agreements with other countries. Canada has science and technology agreements affecting forestry with the European Union, France, Germany and Japan. It has also a very active country-to-country arrangement through a memorandum of agreement signed in 1998 between Natural Resources Canada and the State Forestry Administration of China. This agreement covers broad areas of cooperation, including sustainable forest management, forest protection, forestry equipment and trade in forest products.

Despite these and other voluntary efforts, numerous international agreements, goodwill declarations, and much hard work in recent years, forests worldwide continue to disappear at an alarming rate–according to the United Nations, an estimated 113 000 km2 annually, an area twice the size of Nova Scotia.

Inappropriate forest policies, programs and activities exacerbate food insecurity, poverty, civil conflict and environmental degradation. Current forest policy in some regions of the world fails to reflect the critical contribution forests make to both the global environment and economy.

There are a host of international agreements that deal directly or indirectly with forest management. Canada is party to agreements that deal with biodiversity, climate change, desertification, persistent organic pollutants and trade in endangered species, among others.

The contribution of such international treaties and conventions on forest management at the national level is currently under debate. Some see the agreements as a foundation for concerted international action on specific problems. Critics, however, feel that such agreements fail to sufficiently oblige nations to make the changes needed to arrest degradation, deforestation and other such serious problems.