Sustainable development is a term reflecting human, societal, and environmental values and in order to determine progress toward this goal; it is necessary to identify and define these values, and for governments or other institutions to establish the means to assess progress. Canada is directly involved in national and international processes to assess the sustainability of forest management processes using Criteria and Indicators. These consist of a group of broad core values (Criteria) and are supported by an number of measures (Indicators) to assess status or progress toward the realization of these values. Measuring and monitoring indicators is necessary to demonstrate progress toward sustainable development nationally and internationally.