Publication: Halting Deforestation and Forest Certification. What is the Macro-impact of the Forest Stewardship Council?
Halting Deforestation and Forest Certification. What is the Macro-impact of the Forest Stewardship Council?
| dc.contributor.author | Marx, Axel | |
| dc.contributor.author | Cuypers, D. | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2022-01-23T18:57:51Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2022-01-23T18:57:51Z | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://open.fsc.org/handle/resource/992 | |
| dc.title | Halting Deforestation and Forest Certification. What is the Macro-impact of the Forest Stewardship Council? | en |
| dcterms.abstract | Deforestation is threatening biodiversity and contributing to climate change. Halting deforestation is one of the key challenges for local and global governance. In recent years one can observe the emergence and proliferation of new governance mechanisms which aim to manage forests sustainably. One of these new mechanisms, which has received increasing attention in the literature, is certification by non-state actors. Certification implies, in this context, that forest management or timber products meet specified standards. In the context of timber and forest certification several certification initiatives have emerged of which the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is the most widely distributed and most credible initiative. This type of non-state market regulation of forests is by some authors regarded as one of the key mechanisms for global forest governance. Little empirical research has been conducted on the macro-impact of certification. The paper aims to make a contribution to this effort and focuses on the FSC as a specific case study. The paper analyzes two types of impact. On the one hand, the paper assesses the degree to which certification contributes to halting deforestation as a key component of sustainable forest management. On the other hand, the paper assesses the macro-impact of certification on governance since this is relevant in the context of Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (FLEG) and emerging global forest carbon schemes to halt deforestation and forest degradation (i.e. REDD), and refers to key principles outlined by the Forest Stewardship Council. The paper uses a dataset which contains originally collected data on FSC-certified forest surface area from nearly 1.000 forests worldwide and combines this with data from the FAO (forest coverage data), human development index and governance indicators in order to assess the potential and limits of forest certification as a governance tool to halt deforestation and develop sound (forest) governance. The paper shows that there is little impact on halting deforestation and that only a small proportion of forests worldwide is FSC certified. However, the paper does find significant variation in forest area certified between countries (especially in developed countries) pointing to the potential of forest certification. The paper further explores this finding by linking it to socio-economic development, ownership of forests and uses of forests. The paper finds a 'stuck at the bottom' problem which is related to the development levels of countries. Secondly the paper finds no direct impact on governance, as measured by the Worldbank Governance Indicators. The implication, both in term of opportunities and limitations are further discussed. | en |
| dcterms.accessRights | Public | |
| dcterms.accessRights | Open access | |
| dcterms.bibliographicCitation | Marx, A. and Cuypers, D., 2011. Halting Deforestation and Forest Certification–What is the Macro-Impact of the Forest Stewardship Council?. Available at SSRN 1763401. | en |
| dcterms.issued | 2011-02-17 | |
| dcterms.language | en | |
| dcterms.license | Other | en |
| dcterms.publisher | Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies | |
| dcterms.type | Working Paper | |
| dspace.entity.type | Publication | |
| fsc.evidenceCategory | FSC impact-related | |
| fsc.focus.sustainDimension | Environmental | |
| fsc.issue.environmental | Deforestation, tree cover loss | |
| fsc.subject | Roads | |
| fsc.subject | Forests | |
| fsc.subject | Certification | |
| fsc.topic.political | Non-State Market Regulation | |
| is.availability.fullText | Full text available | |
| is.contributor.funderType | Public funds (government, EU funding, public research grants) | |
| is.contributor.member | Forest Stewardship Council | |
| is.evaluation.collection | Company/certified entities /co-op data records | |
| is.evaluation.collection | Interviews/surveys with informants/experts | |
| is.evaluation.counterfacts | No | |
| is.evaluation.dataSource | Data by scheme / tool under evaluation | |
| is.evaluation.dataSource | Intergovernmental data (FAO data) | |
| is.evaluation.notes | The study focusses on macro-level impacts of FSC and uses data about FSC-certified forests and data from FAO, the human development index and certain governance indicators to examine the impact of FSC certification on deforestation and forest governance. | |
| is.evaluation.quotes | The paper only focused on the Forest Stewardship Council because it is regarded as the most credible and effective system, it operates on a global scale (is geographically better represented than other certification schemes) and makes, in a transparent way, data available for analysis. | |
| is.evaluation.quotes | The analysis shows a strong link between the level of development and FSC-certification in the sense that middle to high human development is a necessary condition for certification to occur | |
| is.evaluation.quotes | The paper found that the contribution of certification to halting deforestation presently is limited partially due to the stuck-at-the-bottom problem (ie the fact that certification occurs only from a certain level of development onwards). | |
| is.evaluation.quotes | Approaching the issue from the perspective of the certification initiatives it can be hypothesized that the emergence of certification initiatives may help to impose norms and rule of law values such as contract enforcement, transparency and accountability in weak states and in this way contributes to the development of sound institutions | |
| is.evaluation.quotes | The main difference between FSC certification and the others is that the FSC is the only genuine multi-stakeholder third-party certification initiative, while the others basically employ a form of self-regulation (Abbott & Snidal, 2009). The FSC is generally considered the most effective forest certification system since it is completely performance-based and not only system based (Diamond, 2005; Cashore et al., 2005; ÉEM, 2007; Milieudefensie et al., 2006). | |
| is.evaluation.quotes | In addition it is interesting to note that FSC certification is increasingly becoming an instrument in public policy-making. In general one can identify three ways in which public policy-makers are using the FSC in public policy-making (see also Marx, 2010). First an increasing number of governmental bodies are applying for FSC certification for forests which are under their ownership (supra). Secondly, in certain cases, the new laws with regard to forest management require that forest owners or concession-owners apply for certification. Bolivia's ‘New Forest Law 1700' for example requires that private forest owners and concession holders apply for third-party forest certification. (Carey and Guttenstein, 2008, p. 15). A similar trend can be identified in China, which integrated sustainable forestry standards from the FSC in its new Forest Strategy (Carey and Guttenstein, 2008). Thirdly, certification is used in public procurement policies in developed countries as a leverage tool (e.g. in the EU public procurement constitutes 16% of European GDP). Many countries and local governments are increasingly using sustainability criteria when purchasing goods. Certificates, such as FSC, provide in one label all the information with regard to these criteria and hence are often used when governments have to decide on buying specific goods. | |
| is.evidenceSubType | Synthesis paper - systematic review | |
| is.evidenceType | Synthesis paper | |
| is.focus.products | Other forestry and logging | |
| is.focus.sdg | SDG 13 - Climate Action | |
| is.focus.sectors | Agriculture | |
| is.focus.sectors | Forestry | |
| is.focus.sustainDimension | Environmental | |
| is.focus.sustainDimension | Social | |
| is.focus.sustainLens | Transnational governance | |
| is.focus.sustainOutcome | Climate change adaptation/resilience | |
| is.focus.sustainOutcome | Deforestation and forest protection | |
| is.focus.systemElement | MandE outcomes and impacts | |
| is.focus.systemElement | MandE performance monitoring | |
| is.identifier.code | Impacts | |
| is.identifier.doi | https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1763401 | |
| is.identifier.fscdoi | http://dx.doi.org/10.34800/fsc-international634 | |
| is.identifier.schemeName | Forest Stewardship Council | |
| is.identifier.schemeType | Voluntary Sustainability Standards | |
| is.item.reviewStatus | Peer reviewed |