Abstract: Based on the concept of ecosystem health, this paper discussed the essence of forest ecosystem health. In China, the studies on forest ecosystem health are mainly focused on ecosystem or community level. On ecosystem level, the indices for forest health assessment include structural (e.g., community structure and biodiversity), functional (e.g., water resources conservation and soil and water conservation), and socioeconomic. They are quite complicated, and some of them are difficult to measure. On community level, the indices are mainly of structural, which are relatively simple. Therefore, to build a systemic, effective and unified assessment index system and a scientific and rational health standard is the basis for the further development of forest ecosystem health assessment, and to establish simpler methods for index measurement and to quantify themeasurement results will be the development trend for this assessment.

Key words: Ecosystem approach, Ecosystem management, Conservation of biological diversity, Living resources