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

58
forest certification in developing and transitioning countries
Consequently, many of the regulations made were incapable of preventing the
failure of SFM in Indonesia due to institutional weaknesses in government caused by
collusion, corruption, and manipulation. As a result, the government fails to present
the real facts concerning the country’s forest management performance. With market
pressure, certification has been able to promote SFM through its role as a tool for
verifying forest management practices. Certification has been able to generate greater
transparency and a credible picture of the forest management practices required to
achieve SFM, exposing in the process the forest management unit’s problems caused
by internal and external factors. As a broad generalization, certification in Indonesia
has had a partial effect at the forest management unit level, but it has not been able
to make large-scale changes toward the conditions for SFM, especially those related
to forest governance.
Local Community
At the community level the power dynamics are very interesting. Certification has
pushed forest managers to work closely with local communities. Forest managers
invest more in building community relations through a variety of community
partnership activities. On the other hand, communities have a better chance to
channel their concerns about the behaviour of companies and other groups. Avenues
of communication are developed and participatory approaches are now becoming
part of a new company culture for those under certification. In short, the social aspect
of forest management gets more emphasis.
Private Sector
8 Personal correspondence with
PT Riau Andalan Pulp and
Paper, March 2004.
Companies have recognized that the implementation of sustainable forest initiatives
makes compliance with the Government’s SFM mandate more systematic and
straightforward. With forest certification, it was hoped that the Government would
grant incentives to the company in the form of reducing administrative requirements
such as approval of the annual operations plan and favourable considerations. 8
Companies operating forest management units also attempt to use certification as a
lever for policy change. In the case of one company in East Kalimantan, the forest
management team lobbied the local government as well as the Ministry of Forestry to
establish a policy environment that would enable the company to meet its certification
conditions. However, there are only a few certification supporters attempting to
achieve policy change and they are not well organized and tend to emphasize the
technical aspects of certification. More generally, certification has not been adopted
as a tool for policy change.
Social
One major social challenge encountered by forest management units has been the
failure to build better relationships with communities in and around concessions.
Certification improves community consultation mechanisms, with companies
yale school of forestry & environmental studies