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

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forest certification in developing and transitioning countries
Once certified, the timber cut from a forest moves through a complex chain that
may include sawmillers, secondary manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and final
consumers. The length of the timber chain presents a problem for certification. How
can a retailer or consumer be certain that the purchased forest product actually comes
from a certified operation? To enable the FSC logo to be placed on a final forest product,
the organization engages in “chain-of-custody” certification. Companies along
the timber chain apply for a chain-of-custody certificate licensing them to receive,
store, process and sell FSC-certified products. FSC not only accredits CBs to certify
forests, therefore, it also licenses them to conduct chain-of-custody audits to secure
the flow of FSC-certified timber through the product chain.
An important element of FSC’s approach is the accurate interpretation of its P&Cs
in the forest. Although CBs may employ FSC’s generic standard to certify operations
around the world, the Principles and Criteria are written at a high level of abstraction
and need to be further elaborated in the form of indicators (and, sometimes, verifiers)
to meet national and local requirements. Where no national or regional FSC
standards exist, CBs use their own indicators. However, a core objective of FSC is to
have national working groups undertake the development of indicators relevant to
the state or provincial context.
The cost of certification is a critical issue that especially affects small operators,
who confront the same fixed costs of certification as large operators — professional
fees, team travel, accommodation, per diem, stakeholder consultations — but spread
them over a much smaller volume of extracted timber. FSC has revised its approach
over the years to accommodate small operators, with two options now available. One
approach is group certification, where small operators join a cooperative or
community forest association, with the collective body taking out FSC membership
certification and ensuring that its members practice appropriate forest management.
Costs are reduced because the CB need only audit a random sample of member
operations. A second approach is FSC’s “Small and Low-Intensity Managed Forests”
(SLIMF) certification system that permits CBs to streamline audit arrangements and
reduce costs for operations under 100 ha and for low-intensely managed operations
of up to 1000 ha.
Competitor Approaches
The formation of FSC in 1993 was closely observed by industry and forest owner associations,
who eventually created “FSC competitor programs” (Cashore, Auld, and
Newsom 2004). Such competitor programs became especially prominent in those
countries where FSC began to gain support and interest along the forest sector’s supply
chain, sparking what one analyst has termed today’s “certification wars”
(Humphreys 2005). The term captured the battle for the “hearts and minds” of participants
in the forest products chain as, in countries around the world, industry and
governments responded to the FSC “threat” by promoting alternative schemes.
Popular international schemes include the International Organization for
Standardization’s 14001 Environmental Management Systems approach (ISO 14001)
and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC, formerly the
yale school of forestry & environmental studies