Forest Certification in Developing and Transitioning ... - UTas ePrints

forest certification in papua new guinea
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Absence of documented guidelines and directions for FSC Certification
requirements;
Very high costs of maintaining the FSC certificate;
Inability of producers to implement certification themselves without assistance
from PHF or donors;
Low staff capacity (unskilled in forest verification and management);
Very low NGO financial, technical, and capital capacity.
The operation was described as ‘brukim bus’ meaning it was carried out without
any experience and on a trial basis. The major challenge was the rigor of the FSC certification
process, which forced significant changes on forest owners in the way forests
were being managed. It was recommended by these staff that community ownership
of such projects was important, a difficulty in this case since the project was owned
and managed by PHF. Although the community had the potential, they lacked the
capacity, and staff argued that they should have been empowered in project management
to sustain the FSC certificate.
The European Commission made certification a condition for continued funding
of the Islands Region Environmental & Community Development Programme’s
(IRECPD) community forestry projects. Certification was used as an indicator of
progress towards sustainable forest management in its overseas aid projects (Bass et al.
2001). As a consequence, 10,000 hectares of forests were certified by October 2000;
these were community eco-forestry operations managed by the landowners in West
New Britain Province, under IRECDP. They were certified by SGS under FSC’s generic
international standards (Damien 2002). In total, 22,500 hectares were certified in PNG
under two FSC group certificates (PHF and IRECDP managed). Unfortunately both
certificates expired and were not renewed because the groups could not meet the costs
of the required annual review.
Currently, the European Union is funding a K 22.5 million (US$ 6.63 million), fiveyear,
Eco-Forestry Project aimed at assisting landowners with small-scale sawmilling
and the export of certified timber. The money is being used by the Forest Authority’s
Eco-Forestry Programme (EFP) to develop community eco-forestry services that assist
land and resource owners in PNG. It is also being used to fund the FSC PNG National
Working Group meetings to develop the National Standards.
As can be noted in Tables 5 and 6, the community forestry programmes, whether
certified or not, currently do not contribute much directly to the national accounts
compared with conventional logging. There is still much work to be done in the
community forestry sector. Many NGOs believe that forest certification is able to
ameliorate environmental and social problems associated with forest management;
however, they are conscious also that it demands both economic and labour
commitment. Furthermore, most NGOs believe that forest certification is able to
influence government policies in the forestry sector.
yale school of forestry & environmental studies