Connie McDermott, Program on Forest Policy and Governance, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University.
Ben Cashore, Director, Program on Forest Policy and Governance, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University
Peter Kanowski, Professor of Forestry, The Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University

Forest practices systems are a principal means by which forest policies are translated into forest management outcomes in production forests. However, there are few systematic comparative studies of forest practices across jurisdictions, nor analyses of their relationship to policies intended to protect forest values. This seminar describes a global study which compares forest practice requirements for natural forests in 20 countries, and plantation forests in the subset of countries in which plantations are important, against a standard set of criteria. Sub-national regimes were assessed for a sample of the countries; a total of 38 jurisdictions were included. In addition to the outcomes of the comparative study itself, we are seeking to draw informative conclusions about the policy styles represented by different forest practices systems, how they treat different forest types and tenures, and establish the basis for subsequent work which might also address the effectiveness of different policy and practice approaches.