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

forest certification in bolivia
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forest companies became the best allies of certification and the CFB adopted
certification as an institutional policy. Today, 20 percent of the area under forest
management in Bolivia is certified and a similar proportion is expected to be certified
within the next two years.
Doubts about the forest certification process also existed outside the forest industry
sector; some stakeholders from civil society suspected that certification was a
Northern plan to control the world’s rainforests. However, when Bolivia’s logging
companies adopted certification, most doubts disappeared. The national government
affirmed its commitment to certification since it improved its image both inside and
outside the country.
Community forests and indigenous people were also interested in certification,
although the process is clearly dominated by industrial forest companies. In terms of
forest management capacity and political influence, the community sector is the
weakest in the certification process and timber companies the strongest. Since certification
is closely related to the export of forest products, benefits are not evident for
communities.
Along with other efforts to promote community participation in certification, the
Green Label Project was implemented by SNV and Confederación de Pueblos
Indigenas del Oriente Boliviano (CIDOB, or Confederation of Indigenous People of
Eastern Bolivia), and financed by the Netherlands; the project’s second phase was
carried out by HIVOS (Semo 1999). The Green Label Project worked in coordination
with the national certification process and had representatives at CFV and the
standards technical committee. Despite its efforts, the Green Label Project was not
able to add community-based initiatives to the group of certified producers; however,
it was able to educate communities about the benefits of certification and forest
management.
Similarly, since 1999, WWF-Bolivia has managed a fund supported by Sweden to
finance technical assistance and certification for community-based forest operations
in Latin America (Pierront 1999).
Current Status of Forestland Certification
Forest certification in Bolivia has grown quickly since 1998 (Figure 3). The country
currently has 13 certified forest operations, totaling 1,414,083 hectares (Table 5) and 17
chain-of-custody operations (Table 6). Three forest management operations are currently
involved in the certification process (Table 7), all through SmartWood. Two
operations have lost their certificates and one has been temporally suspended. No
Brazil nut management operation has yet been certified.
yale school of forestry & environmental studies