Key Logics of International Forest Governance and SDG 15

International Forest Policies in Indonesia: International Influences, Power Changes and Domestic Responses in REDD+, One Map and Forest Certification Politics

Forests cover about 30% of the world´s land area and provide people and nature with essential ecosystem services and goods. Despite their importance, forests continue to be degraded. A variety of international forest governance and policy arrangements have developed to foster protection and sustainability of forests. However, number of studies point to nonexistence of a global forest policy regime per se, and growing institutional fragmentation of forest governance arrangements. In line with continuing priority of national sovereignty in the international regulation of forest policy, the role of domestic policies, mainly domestic forest policy actors, is considered central to international forest governance analysis by many researchers. The paper aimed to set the framework for the international forest policy analysis by domestic forestry stakeholders´ perceptions. The dimensions of Policy Arrangements Approach modified for purpose of meeting the nature of research, serve as theoretical foundations. In the first part, the paper aim to define dimensions theoretically. In the second part, specific international forest-focused political processes are described through adapted dimensions. The two steps serve as the basis for research to be subsequently applied in selected European countries.

This chapter wants to introduce an additional perspective to the discussion on how to regulate soils by an international treaty. Well comparable to the concern of forests and international forest governance, the discussions within the framework of international soil governance largely center around the creation of a single stand-alone international instrument—may it be legally binding or not, within or outside the framework of an existing convention. Against the background of the developments within international forest governance over the last four decades and the evolution of what has been referred to as the international forest regime, a change of the approach to the international regulation of concerns like forests and soils seems appropriate. The example of forests in international law and policy indicates that options for more concerted—coordinated—approaches of the existing regime infrastructure need to be realized to achieve the sustainability goals required for human well-being today and for future generations.

Towards a donut regime? Domestic actors, climatization, and the hollowing-out of the international forests regime in the Anthropocene

Accountability and reciprocal interests of bilateral forest cooperation under the global forest regime

Global forest governance — Discussing legal scholarship from political science perspectives

Translating Sustainable Forest Management from the global to the domestic sphere: The case of Brazil

This paper reviews the design of the international forest governance and policy, and analyses its impacts in addressing deforestation and forest degradation as global sustainability issues. Informed by literatures on international relations, regulatory governance of global commodity production, and international pathways of domestic influence, key arrangements are aggregated into six types, and mapped in terms of their main aims, instruments, and implementation mechanisms. Key analytical dimensions, such as the actors involved (state–private–mixed), the character of legal authority (legally binding–non-legally binding), and the geopolitical scope (global–transnational) helped to identify the potential and limitations of arrangements. They were assessed and compared in terms of their main pathways of influence such as international hard-law rules, cross-sectoral policy integration, non-legally binding norms and discourses, global market mechanisms, and direct access through capacity building. Our results reveal important challenges in the design and implementation, and in the pathways of influence, of the forest governance arrangements, including major inconsistencies with forest-adverse economic sectors. We conclude about the need for coherent international forest-related policy cooperation and integrative actions in agriculture, bioenergy, and mining to enhance the prospects of achieving the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

Forests have been an important issue in world politics at least since the UNCED conference in Rio in 1992. Since then the focus of academic attention has been on global forest governance by an international forest regime complex consisting of several forest-related regimes. This strong focus leaves a research gap regarding regional regimes addressing forests as an issue area, which recently greatly gained in empirical and academic relevance. It is particularly important to understand the institutional structures on the one hand, and the policies developed within such regimes on the other. In order to obtain a better understanding of this in the forest case, the aim of this article is to analyse the institutional design of three regional forest regimes and to develop fields and hypotheses for future research. We built upon the rational design of international institutions framework developed by Koremenos et al. (Int Organ 55(4):761–799, 2001), and based our findings on content analysis of key documents as well as participant observations and expert interviews in selected occasions. The regional regimes chosen for this study were Amazonian, the Central African and pan-European forest cooperation. The results indicate that the designs of the three regimes greatly differ regarding membership, scope, control, centralisation, and flexibility. This seems to be mainly due to differing degrees of formality of the regimes (from treaty to non-treaty to hybrid regimes) as well as different power structures amongst members and regional hegemons involved. Based on our findings, future research fields for the study of regional forest-related environmental, trade, commodity, and management regime structures as well as regime policies are identified. Such insights advance our understanding of international forest governance not only by global, but by regional forest regimes as well. This is particularly true for our understanding that similar issue-specific problems, such as sustainable forest management, in terms of regime structures and regime policies may be addressed quite differently, largely depending on the preferences of regional powers and hegemons and other potential region-specific factors. We conclude by questioning a hypothesised diffusion of international institutions and propose the more precise concept of institutional osmosis instead.

While deforestation and forest degradation have gained attention in recent years not least at the UN climate negotiations, a third “de”, i.e., defaunation, has to a great extent been overlooked. Human-induced faunal loss does not only reduce tree species diversity, but also significantly erodes key ecosystem services and functions and further disadvantages local communities. In this article, we analyze these impacts, and the associated multi-level governance gaps, through a case study of Nigeria’s Cross River State and make suggestions for more encompassing conservation approaches that take defaunation into account. To this end, we analyze the interplay between current forest governance and REDD+ in Cross River State and local hunting of forest fauna. Drawing on Ostrom’s social-ecological systems framework and a mixed-methods approach, we identify shortcomings and gaps of international and domestic forest governance, for instance, the ongoing expansion of agriculture in forest areas, a lack of collective action on forest fauna conservation at the local level, as well as conflicts amongst key actors at the sub-national level. Current REDD+ governance in Cross River State largely fails to address fauna loss and local hunting practices, but also affect allocation and access of environmental benefits and burdens for local people.

The discursive structure of FLEGT (Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade): The negotiation and interpretation of legality in the EU and Indonesia

REDDuced: From sustainability to legality to units of carbon—The search for common interests in international forest governance

This study evaluates the import demand elasticities for tropical sawnwood between major European Union (EU) importing countries—France, Germany, and Italy—and two key Sub-Saharan African exporters, Cameroon, and Ghana. Using the autoregressive distributed lag error correction approach and two-stage least squares, the analysis reveals that France exhibits elastic demand for Cameroonian sawnwood (−1.20) and nearly unitary elastic demand for Ghanaian sawnwood (−0.96) in the long run. In contrast, Ghanaian sawnwood demand is elastic in Germany (−1.22) and highly elastic in Italy (−2.24). These findings hold significant implications for policymakers and international forest governance. Elastic trade relationships highlight the potential for trade diversion and market shifts that may undermine regulatory efforts such as the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance, and Trade (FLEGT) Voluntary Partnership Agreement and the EU Regulation on Deforestation-Free Products Act (EUDRs). Conversely, relatively inelastic demand may allow for stricter enforcement of deforestation-free supply chains with minimal market disruption.

This paper discusses the history and present status of community forest certification as an illustration of the growing interactions between global and local processes in forest governance. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification system is analyzed as an illustrative case of the trend towards increased incorporation of community-based forest enterprises (CFEs) into international initiatives for sustainable forest management and global markets. First the paper reviews the development of community-based forest management and the evolution in certification of community-based forest enterprises. Next it discusses the main challenges and opportunities for making CFE certification accessible and beneficial for communities. Finally it illustrates the importance of multi-level and multi-actor partnerships for creating effective interfaces between global standards and community forestry practices. The experiences with FSC certification of community-based forest enterprises demonstrate that community forestry is enlarging its scope from autonomous decision-making on local practice to incorporation in international forest governance systems. This experience also demonstrates that the application of global standards for sustainable forest management requires adaptation to local realities. These lessons are of relevance for further incorporation of community forestry in the newly evolving global programs for forest management and conservation.

Background: International and market forces are key drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, with transnational and market-based solutions in land-use and forest governance often missing economic, distributive, and environmental targets.Methods: This paper tackles both the framing and effectiveness of transnational initiatives affecting forest lands and peoples in the Global South, and the quality of relationships between institutions in the Global North and the Global South. Through more equitable research partnerships, this paper draws lessons from case studies in Indonesia (legality verification system in different forest property regimes), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (lifting of a moratorium on new logging concession), and Brazil (FSC in the Amazon region and the Amazon Fund).Results: International partnerships have privileged market-based instruments and commodity exchange between Global South and Global North countries, and the benefits of such mechanisms are unevenly distributed. Complementary and alternative policy instruments are discussed for each geography.Conclusions: Glocalizing land-use and forest governance implies in advancing equitable research partnerships between institutions in the Global South and Global North, and strengthening a community of practice for critical enquiry and engagement in partnerships for sustainable development. Land-use, climate and forest governance mechanisms must redress power dynamics, and partnership models, and commit to improving well-being and sustainable livelihood outcomes.