The Area Production Model: A tool and concept for sustainable land-use andforest-resource management

In developing countries, planning in the forestry sector has been seen as a n appropriate instrument to prepare and implement government policies and p rograms. Despite its potential and recent advancements in, for example, rem ote sensing and infrastructure, tropical forest land-use planning is often formal and non-integrated with agriculture. It rarely involves all legitima te stakeholders and neglects taking into account actual land-use. The socio -economic and environmental consequences of these shortcomings emphasise th e need for alternative ways of approaching planning. This article summarise s the idea, structure and current status of the Area Production Model (APM) , originally developed in the 1980s, which is now gaining interest as a lan d-use planning tool in Africa and Asia. It describes the development over t ime of production and consumption in agriculture and forestry within a defi ned geographical area operating under different assumptions on management, land use and socio-economic and macro-economic changes. From a narrow persp ective, the APM is a fairly simple computerised tool for generating scenari os. In a broad sense, it is a concept comprising the whole planning process including organisation, inventory, data analysis, consensus building and s trategy. A case-study in Lacs, based on verified data for a historical peri od of 45 years, and a review of different APM applications in the world ove r the last 15 years are presented as a base for conclusions about its poten tial and shortcomings. in some cases where the APM concept was used in trai ning courses and planning exercises involving stakeholders, it generated a strong interest in collecting and analysing relevant information. It provid es the means of addressing a number of shortcomings in current planning. (C ) 2001 Academic Press.