Publication: Impacts of FSC and PEFC Forest Certification in North and South America
Impacts of FSC and PEFC Forest Certification in North and South America
dc.contributor.author | Cubbage, F.W. | |
dc.contributor.author | Moore, S. | |
dc.contributor.author | McCarter, K. | |
dc.contributor.author | Diaz, D. | |
dc.contributor.author | Dube, F. | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2022-01-23T18:55:48Z | |
dc.date.available | 2022-01-23T18:55:48Z | |
dc.identifier.uri | https://open.fsc.org/handle/resource/657 | |
dc.title | Impacts of FSC and PEFC Forest Certification in North and South America | en |
dcterms.abstract | We conducted surveys of firms that had received Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) forest management certification in the U.S. and Canada, and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) forest management certification in the United States, and American Tree Farm System (ATFS) in the United States, and interviewed a sample of firms in Argentina and Chile that had received Forest Stewardship Council or Certificación Forestal (CERTFOR). SFI, CERTFOR, and ATFS are endorsed by the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) system; FSC has a unified world governance system. All firms improved many practices in forest management, environmental protection, community relations, public affairs, economic, and environmental management systems in order to receive certification, and most received several conditions or corrective action requests as well. On average, firms changed between 14 to 16 forestry, environmental, social, and economic and system practices in order to obtain or maintain forest certification for FSC and SFI in North America, and 26 practices in South America. Private landowners certified under the ATFS system made fewer changes, with 2.76 per certified owner. Organizations in North America that received SFI forest certification made more changes in economic and system components of their forest management practices—an average of 6.8 per organization for SFI vs. 3.9 for FSC. Organizations that received FSC forest certification made slightly more changes in forest management and environmental practices—6.8 vs. 5.9 for SFI, and more changes in social and community components—2.4 vs. 1.4 for SFI. ATFS owners made the most changes in forest management, best management practices (BMPs), and planning (1.96), followed by economic and system (0.77), and social and legal (0.04). The number of changes in South America depended more on the size of the firms than on the forest certification system, with the three large firms in Chile (both FSC and CERTFOR) making more changes than the much smaller firms in Argentina. The average of 26 changes made by firms in Argentina and Chile were distributed very evenly among environmental, social, and economic components of certification standards. Most organizations stated that they would definitely or probably maintain forest certification, with 90% of SFI, 84% of ATFS, and 69% of FSC in the U.S.A, and 90% of the firms surveyed in South America. A majority of firms in all systems and countries felt certification benefits exceeded their costs, and met the initial objectives of the organization. Firms in South America seemed more enthusiastic regarding the merits of certification, but much fewer are certified. | en |
dcterms.accessRights | Public | |
dcterms.accessRights | Open access | |
dcterms.bibliographicCitation | Cubbage, F., Moore, S. and McCarter, K., Impacts of FSC and PEFC Forest Certification in North and South America | en |
dcterms.issued | 2009 | |
dcterms.language | en | |
dcterms.license | Other | en |
dcterms.publisher | Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria | |
dcterms.type | Working Paper | |
dspace.entity.type | Publication | |
fsc.evidenceCategory | FSC impact-related | |
fsc.focus.sustainDimension | Economic | |
fsc.focus.sustainDimension | Social | |
fsc.focus.sustainDimension | Environmental | |
fsc.focus.tenureManagement | Private | |
fsc.issue.economic | Benefits, motivations, reasons for certification | |
fsc.issue.economic | Costs, obstacles, barriers to certification | |
fsc.issue.environmental | Environmental management | |
fsc.subject | Forest certification | |
fsc.subject | Forests | |
fsc.subject | Non-state regulation | |
fsc.subject | Certification | |
fsc.subject | Multi-stakeholder Standards | |
fsc.subject | Best practices | |
fsc.subject | Biodiversity Conservation | |
fsc.subject | FSC | |
fsc.subject | PEFC | |
fsc.subject | Policy Mix | |
fsc.subject | Europe | |
fsc.subject | Latin America | |
fsc.topic.social | Consultation, participation, empowerment | |
is.availability.fullText | Full text available | |
is.contributor.funderType | Unreported | |
is.contributor.member | Forest Stewardship Council | |
is.coverage.country | Chile | |
is.coverage.country | Argentina | |
is.coverage.country | United States of America | |
is.coverage.country | Canada | |
is.coverage.countryAlpha2 | CL | |
is.coverage.countryAlpha2 | AR | |
is.coverage.countryAlpha2 | US | |
is.coverage.countryAlpha2 | CA | |
is.coverage.geographicLevel | Country | |
is.coverage.latitude | -35.675147 | |
is.coverage.latitude | -38.416097 | |
is.coverage.latitude | 37.09024 | |
is.coverage.latitude | 56.130366 | |
is.coverage.longitude | -71.542969 | |
is.coverage.longitude | -63.616672 | |
is.coverage.longitude | -95.712891 | |
is.coverage.longitude | -106.346771 | |
is.coverage.region | South America | |
is.evaluation.collection | Interviews/surveys with certified entities and their representatives and workers/producers | |
is.evaluation.collection | Interviews/surveys with informants/experts | |
is.evaluation.counterfacts | Yes | |
is.evaluation.dataSource | Data by scheme / tool under evaluation | |
is.evaluation.notes | A comparative analysis of the impacts of FSC and PEFC certification in the Americas. For that, interviews and surveys were conducted with organizations in North and South America that received a forest management certificate. Changes in regard to forest management, environmental protection, community relations, public affairs, socioeconomic and environmental systems were observed for FSC and PEFC (SFI, ATFS, CERTFOR) certified forests, but organizations in North America with a SFI certificate changed more in regard to economic parts of the forest management, while FSC certified organizations made more changes in environmental practices, social aspects and community relations. For ATFS certified firms only few changes were identified. This might be a consequence of the variation in the number of indicators of each scheme. While FSC has up to 200 in some countries, CERTFOR and SFI has about 100, and ATFS only 24 indicators in 2008. In South America the size of the firms were decesive: the three large firms examined in the study changed more in all components of the certification standards than the smaller ones. In general, a positive cost-benefit-relation were stated. | |
is.evaluation.quotes | In South America, the 26 changes made by FSC and CERTFOR certificate holders were well distributed across forest management, environmental, social, legal, economic, and system components. FSC in the United States had somewhat more focus on environmental and social components; | |
is.evaluation.quotes | In fact, they made about three times more changes then the CARs under the FSC system. The public and private organizations that were certified in North America also made many changes, again indicating that forest certification does have significant impacts on the ground, across a range of components. The ATFS system required fewer changes of landowners, as appropriate for small and less intensively managed forests. | |
is.evidenceSubType | Empirical study - no control, data collected post-intervention | |
is.evidenceType | Empirical study | |
is.focus.products | Other forestry and logging | |
is.focus.sdg | SDG 17 - Partnerships for the Goals | |
is.focus.sdg | SDG 15 - Life on Land | |
is.focus.sectors | Forestry | |
is.focus.sustainDimension | Economic | |
is.focus.sustainDimension | Social | |
is.focus.sustainDimension | Environmental | |
is.focus.sustainIssue | Forests and other ecosystems | |
is.focus.sustainLens | Multiple certification | |
is.focus.sustainOutcome | Deforestation and forest protection | |
is.focus.sustainOutcome | Ecosystem quality | |
is.focus.systemElement | MandE outcomes and impacts | |
is.focus.systemElement | MandE performance monitoring | |
is.identifier.code | Impacts | |
is.identifier.doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.34800/fsc-international379 | |
is.identifier.schemeName | Forest Stewardship Council | |
is.identifier.schemeType | Voluntary Sustainability Standards | |
is.identifier.schemeType | Specific national plans, policies and platforms | |
is.link.url | http://inta.gob.ar/sites/default/files/script-tmp-impacts_of_fsc_and_pefc_forest_certification_in_north.pdf |