Abstract
Over the last 25 years, the global area of certified forests has grown rapidly and voluntary forest certification has become recognized as an effective tool to engage international markets in improving sustainability within forest management units. However, the bulk of this growth has occurred in North America, Northern Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, with relatively limited uptake in the tropics. Since its creation, forest certification has been largely understood as a “market-based” mechanism, in contrast to government-led policies and regulations. Through the experience of the Responsible Asia Forestry and Trade (RAFT) partnership in the Asia Pacific region, we find that the framing of forest certification as voluntary and market-based, and as a mechanism to overcome governance failure, has created an artificial dichotomy. In this dichotomy, voluntary certification and regulatory measures to promote sustainable forest management are conceived of and pursued largely independently. We argue that it is more constructive to view them as complementary approaches that share a common goal of increasing sustainability across the forestry sector. In practice, forest certification interacts with conventional governance institutions and mechanisms. Understanding these interactions and their implications, as well as additional possibilities for interaction, will help in realizing the full potential of forest certification.
Highlights
In the late 1980s, increasing concerns over global tropical deforestation and forest degradation, coupled with the failure of early intergovernmental efforts to curb forest loss, especially in the tropics [1], led international non-state actors to look for alternative approaches to strengthen forest governance
The Responsible Asia Forestry and Trade (RAFT) partnership is a consortium of seven organizations that have been working together for 10 years to improve the sustainability of tropical forest management across the Asia Pacific region
This work has included providing technical support and training to forest companies and community forestry operations covering more than nine million hectares towards legality verification and sustainable forest management certification
Summary
In the late 1980s, increasing concerns over global tropical deforestation and forest degradation, coupled with the failure of early intergovernmental efforts to curb forest loss, especially in the tropics [1], led international non-state actors to look for alternative approaches to strengthen forest governance. The Responsible Asia Forestry and Trade (RAFT) partnership is a consortium of seven organizations that have been working together for 10 years to improve the sustainability of tropical forest management across the Asia Pacific region. This work has included providing technical support and training to forest companies and community forestry operations covering more than nine million hectares towards legality verification and sustainable forest management certification (i.e. in Indonesia, Laos, Papua New Guinea and Vietnam; Malaysia as well, as RAFT has not worked in Malaysia since 2011, it is not covered in detail here). RAFT has worked with national and sub-national governments to strengthen regulatory measures that support sustainable management of natural production and plantation forests, including large-scale industrial and small-scale community-based operations (i.e. in China, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, and Vietnam; as above regarding Malaysia.).
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