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

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forest certification in developing and transitioning countries
4 The twelve countries currently
involved in the Montreal
Process are Argentina,
Australia, Canada, Chile,
China, Japan, Mexico, New
Zealand, Republic of Korea,
Russian Federation, United
States and Uruguay
(http://www.mpci.org/
members_e.html, accessed
September 2005).
achieving broader support, AF&PA restructured the SFB in 2002, reducing its own
control from 40 to 33 percent, with the remaining two-thirds split between representatives
of conservation groups and the broader forestry community. In response to
criticisms about lax enforcement, AF&PA encouraged members to undergo third
party verification. Following periodic reviews of its standard, SFI has adopted a number
of revisions to better incorporate biodiversity objectives, although these remain
weaker than FSC’s, as do its provisions on worker and indigenous peoples’ rights. In
conclusion, and despite its attempts to restructure itself to become a broader-based,
multi-stakeholder body, SFI remains under the control of the AF&PA and unresponsive
to environmental and social concerns.
A second FSC competitor scheme in North America is the Canadian Standards
Association (CSA) scheme, initiated in 1993 with funding from the Canadian Pulp
and Paper Association (CPPA). CSA is an independent, non-governmental organization
accredited to the Standards Council of Canada (SCC). In the past, CSA mostly
focused on the development of narrow, technical standards for industry sub-sectors.
However, in the 1980s CSA gained experience with the ISO 9000 quality management
standard and played a lead role in the development of the ISO) 14001 series. When
approached by the CPPA to develop a forestry standard, CSA built on these experiences
and did not consider an alternative, performance-based approach (Elliott 1999).
Like SFI, CSA was initiated by industry. It did, however, include environmental
and indigenous representatives on the responsible technical sub-committee. The
scheme was never accepted by Canada’s environmental and indigenous peoples’
network, however, and even struggled to gain acceptance from industry, which found
its provisions onerous in comparison to ISO or SFI. Although based on an
environmental systems approach to certification, CSA later added a more substantive,
performance-based requirement by referencing the Canadian Council of Forest
Ministers’ sustainable forest management guidelines. These guidelines were
developed through the Montreal Process, a lengthy series of negotiations between
forestry representatives of twelve countries over the meaning of sustainable forest
management in the Americas and beyond. 4
FSC competitor programs have emerged over the past decade in other regions of the
world. In Latin America, Brazil’s Instituto Nacional de Metrologia, Normalização e
Qualidade Industrial, known as INMETRO, developed the CERFLOR scheme while
Chile’s CertFor Scheme was endorsed by the PEFC in 2004. In the Asia-Pacific, the two
largest forest product exporters, Indonesia and Malaysia, have developed schemes
known as the Malaysian Timber Certification Council (MTCC) and Lembaga Ekolabel
Indonesia (LEI) respectively. In Africa, the African Timber Organisation has since the
mid-1990s developed the Pan African Forest Certification scheme (PAFC). PAFC-
Gabon was established in October 2004, and has joined the PEFC in anticipation of
future endorsement. Meanwhile in Eastern Europe, schemes are being developed in
Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Russia for PEFC endorsement.
Key differences between FSC and competitor schemes are summarized in Table 1
below, based on who has rule-making authority and the nature and scope of the rules
established. Table 2 compares FSC’s scheme with several competitors across a range
of criteria to further illustrate differences.
yale school of forestry & environmental studies