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undertaken very frequently on a particular area, the resource ecosystem will transform from a close cyclic system to an open system. Though opening of a system gives a higher yield for a short-term basis, on a long-term scale, equivalent amounts of human effort need to be given as an input to obtain the productivity on a sustainable basis (like production from agriculture and plantation). Getting productivity from an open system is equivalent to stretching and squeezing the resource productivity, which cannot be continued for an indefinite period if a certain threshold is exceeded. Therefore, one of the objectives of resource policy is to limit, not only the scale of this type of human operation, but also the sequence of action. The support for effective sequence comes from policy making based on scientific evidence that reinforce operations through:

1.strengthening management capacity,

2.carrying out operations in harmony with human development, and

3.supporting the stakeholders in linking their interest with policy processes.

Thus an extended target of policy evaluation explains the sequence of human action that assists sustainable resource utilization. Under the circumstances, the policy evaluation focuses on management actions pertained to planning and producing policy communication such as policy briefs, research briefs, and stories of change. These eventually help managers and stakeholders to synthesize the outcome of an operation with policy intention. These are then to be communicated to policy makers for corrective action and/or incentive design. Information and communication technology used in operations also indicate a way for managers to better collaborate with stakeholders in sharing sequence of operations.

3.6 ACCOMMODATING TRADITION AND CULTURE

Human action and cooperation for sharing resources among themselves and with other living beings depends on many intersocial and intrasocial factors like culture, tradition, and economy. These variables involve various things ranging from the food habit to burial tradition. The differences in the tradition, economy, and culture may result in a different impressions on the practices of resource use. In some societies, people worship trees as symbol of God. In some other societies

using Nontimber Forest Products (hereafter NTFP) is one of the most acceptable traditions of the country people (Byron and Perez, 1996). They use the NTFPs for house implements, traditional treatments, food ingredient, festival article, and many other purposes. Improved marketing system and valuation of these NTFPs may increase the value of forest resources so that they become far higher than the price obtained when they are destroyed (Panayotou and Ashton, 1992; Stiles, 1994). These factors may also increase the acceptability of policy to local people. Thus, a consideration of culture and tradition in sustainability assessment is important.

3.7 SELECTION OF INSTRUMENT

Selection of policy instrument is one of the powerful means for policy success and for controlling human influence on resources. Human needs are very diverse, particularly in the modern society, for which intersocietal cooperation is necessary in the form of trade or exchange of resources in primary or processed form. The trade and exchange of resources can very easily extend and prolong the jurisdiction of the outlet chain of the closed resource system, but for which the whole systems may become unsustainable if not controlled. In a modern society, often selecting traditional instruments may cause policy failure. Generally, the policy target and community obligation and commitment to the policy need to be evaluated before selecting an instrument for policy instrumentation. Usually, various policy instruments are applied for controlling the scale of resource flow applied together to mitigate ups and downs in policy. Selection of multiple instruments are necessary if policy implementation involves several levels of government or requires assistance from a community network. Governance system across scales and levels may be prone to problems of policy implementation. Policy evaluation is expected to provide explanation of how the selected instrument would help in reducing some of these problems to achieve the sustainability target. Such evaluation is also expected to reveal some of the insights as to whether there was any shortcoming in community network consultation during policy formation. Therefore, policy evaluation needs to look into the issues necessary for determining the appropriate instrument and its level of implication for a controlled resource flow.

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3.8 INTEGRATION OF DECISION SYSTEM

The implementation of a policy instrument for sustainability of the resource system is mainly affected by over exploitation from the enhanced demand of increased population (Anon, 1999) and/or lack of planning in undertaking measures attributed to the desire of social development (Ostrom, 1999). Therefore, integrating the decision system related to development issues and exploitation issues constitutes a key factor for sustainability of the environment. There could be various ways by which the integration is possible, e.g., increasing economic expertise in environment ministries and/or increasing environment expertise in economic ministry, cost benefit analysis, adjustment of the system of national accounts could integrate the decisions of economic development and that of environmental sustainability. Though the fields are different, there may be things common in both the fields through which integration issues may be addressed. For example, the factor “consumer” seems to be common both in economic as well as environmental evaluation. Though the term “producer” is common in the economics, in the field of the environment, economic producers can be treated as the consumer of the resources and may convert the resources to a more usable form for the use of direct consumers. Therefore, what are “producer” in the economic climate are direct consumer as well as inducer of the consumption in the environmental arena. While the role of the producers and the consumers and their number, are important for estimating the progress of economic development, evaluation of forest land use policy may consider their role in terms of resource use.

3.9 RESPONDING TO INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

Over the past several years, the perception of nature and context of international cooperation was guided by environmental issues. But change of global politics, such as the end of the cold war era, has produced a new world order under which the rationale of cooperation has changed and thus influenced the environment in both positive and negative ways. The roles of the World Bank (WB), International Monetary Fund (IMF), General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) influence the resource use through structural adjustment, trade, and economic cooperation. There are many global conventions and negotiations, like emission credit, green labeling, and certification,

which could influence forest land use. Thus, policy evaluation should also be targeted to the influence of new perspectives of global cooperation.

Often the vicissitudes of the international timber trade may obscure the rich diversity of political and economic forces of modernity that are transforming tropical forests in the South. For example, in South-east Asia, the world’s major sources of hardwood exports since 1950s (Ooi, 1990); the trade issues may obscure the importance of population resettlement and agricultural clearance in the regional forest and change is worth noting. In this situation it is important to look at where population pressure and inequitable land holdings, security considerations, urbanization, and the general exigencies of “development” are a central part of resource transformation. To understand changes of resource use in this arena is to address broader political, economic, and ecological questions concerning the interrelationship of societies and the natural resources at the local, national, and global levels.

From the discussion in this chapter, it is understandable that characterizing aspects of policy sustainability is important to determine the jurisdiction of policy and thereby the extent of policy sustainability assessment required for attaining the policy objectives.