Sustainability of Forest Management (SFM) is a vague concept and complex system. There is no yardstick to measure it. SFM rests on three pillars, Production Sustainability, Ecological Sustainability and Social Sustainability. Criteria and Indicator (C & I) and forest certification are instruments used to measure SFM. The Sustainable Natural Production Forest Management (SNPFM) is a certification system applied in Indonesia. The decision making process in the current system uses the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), which is criticised as a compensatory approach using linear additive utility model to integrate crisp values. The aim of the research is to explore different methods as alternatives to assess the SFM. The Fuzzy AHP and the Rule Based (Fuzzy Reasoning Method) are explored to overcome the compensatory approach and the inability of the AHP in proper handling linguistic variables. The Cognitive Mapping technique is used to show the causal relationship between verifiers and indicators and to determine the order of importance, which represents the roles of verifiers and indicators in achieving SFM. The result of Cognitive Mapping analysis is used to derive and to check the consistency of the rules in the Rule Based Method. The data of real certification for Labanan Forest Management Unit (FMU), East Kalimantan Province, Indonesia is used to simulate SFM assessment using three different methods. The results of the SFM assessment for Production Principle using the three methods give the certification grade “Bronze”, the same as the result from the real certification. It means that the FMU pass the certification process and four times surveillance will be done within 5 years period. Both of Actual Performance and Passing Performance in the Fuzzy AHP has the highest number (0.6414 and 0.5384), the second is Normal AHP (0.5241 and 0.3805) and the Rule Based assessment has the lowest performance (0.4760 and 0.2500). The Fuzzy AHP result clarifies the result from the normal AHP and already takes account of the uncertainty of experts’ judgment that is not accommodated in the normal AHP. The Rule Based method, which relies on logical approach derived from experts’ knowledge and experience, give more insight meaning and more transparent way in assessment, than both the Normal AHP and the Fuzzy AHP, which rely on mathematical approach. On the other hand it is perceived more subjective and more complex. Since the application of Rule Based in environmental system including SFM assessment still in exploration stage, it remains difficult to convince the Decision Maker for its implementation. Therefore if the method will be implemented it needs to build Decision Support System (DSS) with friendly user interface, so the user only needs to give the input in linguistic values and the final result will be directly in certification grade.
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