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

forest certification in mexico
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introduction 2
Forest certification emerged in Mexico in 1994 following an alliance between two
non-governmental organizations, the Mexican Civil Council for Sustainable
Silviculture (CCMSS/Consejo Civil Mexicano para la Silvicultura Sostenible en México
A.C.), and the SmartWood Program of the Rainforest Alliance. The CCMSS was
interested in promoting sustainable forest management through community forestry
and SmartWood was interested in using its new role as an auditor for the Forest
Stewardship Council (FSC) to promote sustainable forestry in developing countries.
Initial efforts to promote certification were facilitated by the CCMSS’s longstanding
and earnest efforts to promote meaningful stakeholder participation over forest
resource use, which resulted in a high degree of trust with local populations, NGOs,
and other governmental agencies
The emergence of forest certification in Mexico has followed two distinct
pathways. The first path, followed by forest owners primarily in the northern part of
the country, was initiated in response to market pressures from U.S. and European
clients to produce FSC-certified wood. This has generated economic benefits from
forest certification for private wood by-products and charcoal industry firms in
Durango. The second pathway was sparked not by market signals per se, but by the
Mexican federal government, in conjunction with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF),
in an effort to strengthen community forestry processes and preserve biodiversity
rich forests in the state of Oaxaca. Owing to limited resources and capacity, the
Mexican government has come to see forest certification as providing a powerful
instrument with which to stimulate forest conservation, generate revenue for local
communities, and protect forest ecosystems. For these reasons the Mexican federal
government developed policies, including economic incentives, designed to promote
forest certification.
The cumulative impact of these two pathways, to date, is promising. As of July
2004, in Mexico there were 32 FSC-certified operations covering nearly 600,000
hectares, or nearly 7 percent of Mexico’s forestland with a federal forestry permit. In
addition, certification has increased understanding and discussion of what
constitutes sustainable forestry, both within the private and public spheres. However,
the market benefits of certification have yet to reach the stage that the original
initiators had envisioned. In the absence of increased international incentives, it
seems clear that maintaining existing levels of forest certification will require
maintaining ongoing donor and government support.
One of the greatest challenges for forest certification in Mexico will be to develop
a plan for strengthening production and commercialization capacities among
certified communities and organizations, to improve their ability to access
international and domestic markets for FSC-certified products. Important innovations
might include promoting a market for forest-certified products under a “fair
trade” model and improving prices paid to campesino and indigenous community
forest operations.
2 To prepare this document, the
author reviewed a series of
studies and documents related
to the forest sector and
forest certification in Mexico,
carried out interviews with
representatives of the principal
institutions promoting
certification in that country,
and drew upon his personal
experience.
yale school of forestry & environmental studies