The current system of criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management provides very indirect information about the state of biodiversity as it includes very few indicators for biodiversity monitoring. Five arguments are provided in support of such monitoring for the purposes of evaluating sustainable forest management. Criteria for choosing the taxons to monitor based on the monitoring goals are proposed. Finally, emphasis is placed on a number of crucial technical points relating to how the monitoring system is set up: sampling plan, choice of permanent or non-permanent plots, the compromise between spatial and temporal replication of the points, thoughts on the ecological variables to be recorded alongside the targeted biodiversity. These reflections are based on a number of examples of direct monitoring of interspecific forest biodiversity in France and abroad. Implementing monitoring systems of this type should help improve interpretation of pressure and response indicators and in devising new indicators for the state of biodiversity in the context of sustainable forest management indicators.
Gosselin, F., Gosselin, M., & Paillet, Y. (2012). Suivre l’état de la Biodiversité forestière: Pourquoi? Comment? Rev. For. Fr. LXIV: 683-700