Moving beyond the concept of "primary forest" as a metric of forest environment quality

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has been reporting country-level area in primary forests in its Global Forest Resource Assessment since 2005. The FAO definition of a primary forest (naturally regenerated forest of native species where there are no clearly visible indications of human activities and the ecological processes are not significantly disturbed) is generally accepted as authoritative and is being used in policy making. However, problems with this definition undermine our capacity to obtain globally coherent estimates. In addition, the current reporting on primary forests fails to consider the complementarily of non-primary forests toward the maintenance of ecosystem services. These issues undermine the appropriate tracking of changes in primary and non-primary forests, and the assessment of impacts of such changes on ecosystem services. We present the case for an operational reconsideration of the primary forest concept and discuss how alternatives or supplements might be developed.