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

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forest certification in developing and transitioning countries
The concentration of certification in large forest firms in Latin America has
already been pointed out by Markopoulos (2002), who claims that “only the largest
and most advanced enterprises will have the necessary financial resources, business experience
and market linkages to exploit certification benefits,” and presents the following
general shortcomings of certification vis-à-vis community forestry:
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Generic drawbacks of business intensification/reorientation;
High cost of certification;
Inaccessibility of green markets;
Standards and procedures limitations;
Unclear linkages between standards development and public policy
processes.
Similarly, Van Dam (2002) expresses his concern regarding certification’s benefits
to communities; he claims that forest certification has benefited the richest countries,
the biggest enterprises, and the temperate and boreal forests. This argument is supported
by the lack of a fair trade market for community forestry, the high concentration
of certified area in the Northern countries, and the dominance in the South of
large forest companies that have the resources to pay certification assessments and
have experience with forest management and commercialization. In addition, Van
Dam argues that large timber companies do not really promote sustainable local
development and this is why an additional FSC Principle should be added regarding
the role of large timber companies in local community development. However, the
exact role of timber companies in local social development is open to question.
Current Status of the Certified Marketplace
Since Bolivia’s timber industry is vertically integrated, most companies process their
own raw materials. The supply of certified products is not sufficient to meet buyers’
demands. Industries without certified forests are forced to mix 70 percent certified
wood and 30 percent non-certified wood, as allowed by FSC (Jorge Vrsalovich, Jolyka,
2004, personal communication). Others with forest concessions seek additional
certified supplies because their international buyers demand more than they can
produce in their own forests (Alberto Arce, CIMAL/IMR Company, personal
communication).
Within the last five years, the Bolivian economy has been affected by a general
crisis and the timber industry has not been excepted. However, it has become clear
that certified companies were better able to deal with the crisis than non-certified
companies by maintaining or creating new markets and by improving their internal
administrative and management systems (Pablo Antelo, La Chonta, personal
communication). These certified firms showed others that sustainable forest
management was possible, and even profitable, during a crisis. While timber exports
have declined in the past few years, sales of certified products have increased each year
(Figure 4).
yale school of forestry & environmental studies