Forest Law Enforcement Research Articles

Intentions to engage in forest law enforcement in Romania: An application of the theory of planned behavior

Despite numerous positive achievements, the institutional reforms in the forest sector in Central and Eastern European countries are still facing numerous problems. In Romanian case, the relatively new created Forest Inspectorates (FI) have not reached the initial expectations of applying and monitoring the forest-specific regulations. Theory of Planned Behavior was used in this context. FIs employees' intention to engage in forest law enforcement effort was investigated using a questionnaire-based survey including all the FIs employees and having a 77% rate of response. The intention to engage in forest law enforcement was predicted from employees' attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control factors. A rather neutral FIs employees' intention to engage in forest law enforcement was satisfactory explained according to the theory of planned behavior. Particularly, the limited perceived power to affect factors like unsuited training, FIs improper planning & management and unsuited legislation influenced the behavioral intention. Because the effectiveness of new institutions is affected by the engagement of their employees, the conclusions of the study are useful for formulating recommendations on how effectiveness of FIs can be improved by supporting the employees to perform the required engagement in their work. The main recommendations of the study are: to build the capacity of FIs through training and improved management arrangements and to reform the legislation to make it more stable, predictable and easy to implement and monitor.

Renting legality: How FLEGT is reinforcing power relations in Indonesian furniture production networks

Over the past few decades, transnational and supranational market-based forest governance systems have been developed to address the complex problems associated with deforestation, by improving the legality and sustainability of timber traded in global markets. This is catalysed by the increasing global production and consumption of timber products and increasing sensitivity of interest groups to how timber products are produced. A broad range of actors is involved in global production networks. This paper discusses how hierarchies and networks of power across the timber production network are encountered and negotiated. More specifically, it investigates the power constellations of wood furniture actors in Indonesia, nested within global production networks: who holds the power, how power is gained and maintained, and who wins and loses over time. Using the case of the timber legality assurance system in the context of the European Union Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) initiative, we demonstrate that legality verification in Indonesia is both entrenching pre-existing inequitable power relations while producing new modes of elite capture. Legality verification requires new knowledge and additional costs that are sometimes beyond the capacity of certain (particularly smaller) furniture manufacturers operators. This has driven a new practice of renting out FLEGT licenses by larger producers/manufacturers to smaller ones in the country. Although the practice implies potential risks (e.g. fines), large companies in Indonesia manage risk by drawing from pre-existing patronage relations. They also appear to find the risk worthwhile, as it produces financial gain but moreover, a new form of control over the market. Meanwhile, small operators and artisanal producers that still aspire to global markets face disproportionate challenges to engage in legality and are becoming more vulnerable as a result of new legality measures.

Civil society participation in REDD+ and FLEGT processes: Case study analysis from Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia and the Republic of Congo

REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and FLEGT (Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade) are two initiatives with roots at an international scale that aim to influence national and local level forest governance. This paper looks to understand how the breadth and depth of participation of different types of actors, most particularly civil society, compares between these initiatives and in what ways the structure of the governance arrangement and/or the focus of commodities may influence this participation. The paper presents findings from an assessment study on the dynamics of participation of civil society actors in REDD+ and FLEGT processes in four countries of Central and Western Africa: Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia and the Republic of Congo. Building on key civil society participation literature, a questionnaire tool was developed and applied in these countries. The analysis is drawn from interviews based on the questionnaire tool, some in-depth interviews and secondary research. The study finds that there is a growing recognition of civil society participation in national policy making of forest governance in the four countries, and a majority of the civil society organisations are participating in REDD+ and FLEGT processes. The quality and degree of their participation (that can range from informing to empowering) however, varies between FLEGT and REDD+ (i.e. FLEGT being more accommodative than REDD+), among a diversity of these actors and the studied countries. The difference in participation between REDD+ and FLEGT is related to the design of these two processes, the general lack of time and financial investment and the technical nature of REDD+ consultations. Moreover, FLEGT has been more inclusive and participatory right from the beginning whereas participatory spaces are generally lacking in REDD+ process, most particularly in its initial stages. As REDD+ and FLEGT processes are being consolidated in these countries and worldwide, this paper provides several avenues of interventions needed to address gaps on participation, such as strengthening participatory platforms, addressing representation deficit for community groups and focusing on capacity building of civil society actors.

‘Experimental’ or business as usual? Implementing the European Union Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Voluntary Partnership Agreement in Ghana

In this paper, we challenge recent positive assessments made of the European Union Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs), through a case study of their implementation in Ghana. We do this through a review of the rich literature on forest governance in Ghana and the results of 160 semi-structured interviews with relevant actors in the country. While we agree that the VPA has helped establish new fora for dialogue in the forest sector in Ghana, we argue that it has not fundamentally changed the existing forest governance regime. Specifically, the VPA implementation has not changed tree tenure and benefit sharing practices, and by extension, the forestry concession system that for over 8 decades has failed to secure forest sustainability and social equity. The changes introduced through the VPA implementation – the Timber Legality Assurance System, updated forest management plans, and an artisanal milling strategy, largely represent technical fixes to deeply political processes that have long upheld unsustainable practices. Other changes such as enhanced enforcement of Social Responsibility Agreements and more transparent allocations of timber rights are improvements, but they do not fundamentally change the tenure and benefit sharing arrangement, which by any standard is inequitable. Our evidence particularly contradicts Overdevest and Zeitlin's (2016, 2018) depiction of the country's VPA experience as an emerging ‘experimentalist’ forest governance entailing substantive dialogue, recursive problem-solving, and policy learning. At the contrary, and paradoxically, we argue that the VPA implementation in Ghana serves to stabilize and reproduce the very forest governance regime that it set out to reform– a process that is much less ‘experimental’, and much more business as usual.

FLEGT: Another ‘forestry fad’?

There has been recent debate around the role of ‘fads’ in global conservation measures, and the lessons they hold for achieving desired conservation and development outcomes. Fads are characterized by initially widespread enthusiasm and major mobilization of resources followed by abandonment in favor of the next fad. Debate centers less on whether such fads exist, but rather on whether they represent opportunities for incremental policy learning, or are symptomatic of the more systemic failure of a market-based conservation agenda and the reinforcement of existing power inequalities. The European Union (EU)’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance, and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan aims to prevent the trade of illegal timber among the EU and its trading partners especially in the ‘Global South’. Fifteen years since launching the Action Plan, we ask whether the processes and outcomes of FLEGT, and specifically the Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs), resonate with the dynamics observed in other processes dubbed ‘fads’ within conservation and development arenas, and if so, what we can learn from this. Drawing from interviews, grey literature, and scholarship, we examine FLEGT VPAs as following three key stages of a fad: (1) there is initial enthusiasm by a wide range of actors for FLEGT as something ‘new’ or ground-breaking, (2) discrepancies and disagreements emerge about its end goals, i.e. whether it’s core purpose is to distinguish legal from illegal wood in the EU marketplace, or to achieve deeper governance reforms; while the means for achieving those goals borrow heavily from previous market-based initiatives (3) actors and champions become fatigued, yet at the same time frame elements of their own involvement as a ‘success’. Identifying these fad-like characteristics calls into question the ‘newness’ of FLEGT, by uncovering its many similarities to other market-based measures such as certification that exacerbate inequalities. Hence, branding FLEGT a success without challenging its role in the unequal concentration of power and resources, is likely to further entrench these inequalities in subsequent conservation fads, while a focus on incremental learning misses the larger failures and injustices of market-based approaches and can reinforce their re-emergence.

Critical success factors for small and medium forest enterprises: A review

Small and medium forest enterprises (SMFEs) are small firms in developing countries aimed at generating income from a diverse set of forest-related activities. They result in multiple dimensions of economic, social, and cultural prosperity in forest-dependent economies, and as such they constitute an important strategy for fostering prosperity. However, SMFEs face a number of barriers and challenges, including inhospitable or incompatible regulatory environments, difficulties achieving economies of scale, and insufficient access to technical and financial capacity to overcome these issues. Through a comprehensive literature review of scholarly research published on the subject of SMFE failures and successes, our study addressed the following question: what political, economic, and socio-cultural conditions are needed for SMFEs to thrive? In answering this question, we identified and characterized twelve (12) emergent critical success factors (CSFs) of enabling business environments: macroeconomic setting, regulatory frameworks, forest law enforcement, tenure and ownership rights, management and land use planning rights, markets, natural capital, financial capital, forest management capacities, business management capacities, organizational capacities, and clustering. The integrative enabling environment framework proposed in our study can be used as a tool by practitioners seeking to promote SMFEs through programs of support or policy reforms. By considering the various CSFs that act as the foundation for successful SMFE development, the efficacy of forest-dependent livelihood interventions aiming to achieve prosperity around the world can be meaningfully enhanced.

Transforming forest landscape conflicts: the promises and perils of global forest management initiatives such as REDD+

Implementation of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is designed to relieve pressure on tropical forests, however, many are concerned that it is a threat to the rights of forest communities. These potential risks need serious attention as earlier studies have shown that the Asia-Pacific region is a forest conflict hotspot, with many economic, environmental and social implications at global (e.g. climate change) to local levels (e.g. poverty). Drawing on an analysis of nine case studies from four countries (Cambodia, Myanmar, Nepal and Vietnam) this paper examines why and how REDD+ can be a driver for forest conflict and how it also has the potential to simultaneously transform these conflicts. The analytical framework, “sources of impairment”, applied in the study was developed to increase understanding and facilitate the resolution of forest landscape conflicts in a sustainable manner (i.e. transformation). The main findings are that REDD+ can be a source of conflict in the study sites, but also had transformative potential when good practices were followed. For example, in some sites, the REDD+ projects were sources of impairment for forest communities by restricting access to forest resources. However, the research also identified REDD+ projects that enabled the participation of traditionally marginalized groups and built local forest management capacities, leading to strengthened tenure for some forest communities. Similarly, in some countries REDD+ has served as a mechanism to pilot Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), which will likely have significant impacts in mitigating conflicts by addressing the sources at local to national levels. Based on these findings, there are many reasons to be optimistic that REDD+ can address the underlying causes of forest landscape conflicts, especially when linked with other governance initiatives such as Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade – Voluntary Participation Agreements (FLEGT-VPA).

Illegality and inequity in Ghana’s cocoa-forest landscape: How formalization can undermine farmers control and benefits from trees on their farms

Schemes to promote sustainable forest management have increasingly focused on addressing widespread informalities in timber production, based on the presumed links between formalisation, the maintenance of forest cover and local welfare. This trend is typified by the EU Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) initiative and associated Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPA) aimed at eradicating the trade of illegal wood between partner countries and the EU. Yet there is concern that such initiatives might have detrimental impacts on the largely informal rights of local resource users. In order to inform the formalisation agenda, more detailed analysis of the operation of local rights, and how they might be affected by particular schemes is required.This paper focuses on Ghana as a country with a largely informal wood sector that has signed a VPA with the EU for the express purpose of rapid formalisation. Our analysis is guided by a framework for assessing which types of rights might be transformed by particular approaches to formalisation and the subsequent effect this might have on forests and people in particular local contexts. We then apply this framework to an in-depth local case study of on-farm timber governance within a cocoa-forest landscape in Ghana’s Central Region to examine how the operation of formal and informal and substantive and procedural rights shape who controls, and benefits from, on-farm timber production. We then analyse the content of the VPA in light of these local realities and assess its potential impacts.Our findings highlight how the substantive rights the state grants to companies are presumed to be balanced with the granting of procedural rights to farmers via the mechanisms of right of refusal to harvest on-farm timber, compensation for damage to cocoa crops and the negotiation of community-level Social Responsibility Agreements with private companies. Yet a comparison of these formal rights with farmers’ existing informal rights reveals that farmers’ control and access to benefits from trees on their farms are notably higher in the ‘illegal’ chainsaw dominated informal sector than in the ‘legal’ state-based system. Farmers choose to maintain trees on farms both to shade cocoa and in anticipation of benefits from their informal sale. The VPA, however, aims to eradicate all informal on-farm timber production and thus threatens existing local rights and benefit capture while diminishing incentives to maintain trees on farm. Rather than further criminalising local systems of timber governance, the maintenance of tree cover and local benefit-sharing would be better served by 1) phasing out timber concessions on farmland, 2) abandoning the distinction between planted and native trees on farms and, 3) understanding, recognizing and respecting the existing informal rights of farmers, traditional authorities and chainsaw loggers to negotiate among themselves patterns of access and control of on-farm trees and timber. In general, the case study challenges the assertion that formalisation is requisite for sustainable forest management and mandates a more nuanced and contextually informed assessment of the assumed costs and benefits associated with particular forms of legal and policy reform.

FLEGT and livelihoods.

Abstract This review explores the links between the EUs Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade Voluntary Partnership Agreements (FLEGT VPA) and forest and wood product-based livelihoods in the signatory and negotiating countries. It is a stock taking exercise of how sustainable livelihoods, within the context of the FLEGT VPA, have been considered in the literature, what have been the most prominent issues considered in the debates and which ones have been overlooked. Given the paucity of references specifically focused on the topic this review has widened to include issues around livelihoods and forests and conditions under which forests can or do contribute to poverty alleviation, tenure and governance arrangements, gender, regulation and formalization, and potential impacts of the VPA. This review concludes with a list of some unanswered questions that remain which perhaps point towards elements of a broader research agenda or policy focus.

Experimentalism in transnational forest governance: Implementing European Union Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Voluntary Partnership Agreements in Indonesia and Ghana

AbstractOver the past decade, the European Union (EU) has created a novel experimentalist architecture for transnational forest governance: the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) initiative. This innovative architecture comprises extensive participation by civil society stakeholders in establishing and revising open‐ended framework goals (Voluntary Partnership Agreements [VPAs] with developing countries aimed at promoting sustainable forest governance and preventing illegal logging) and metrics for assessing progress toward them (legality standards and indicators) through monitoring and review of local implementation, underpinned by a penalty default mechanism to sanction non‐cooperation (the EU Timber Regulation that prohibits operators from placing illegally harvested wood on the European market). This paper analyzes the implementation of VPAs in Indonesia and Ghana, the two countries furthest advanced toward issuing FLEGT export licences. A central finding is the reciprocal relationship between the experimentalist architecture of the FLEGT initiative and transnational civil society activism, whereby the VPAs’ insistence on stakeholder participation, independent monitoring, and joint implementation review, underwritten by the EU, empowers domestic non‐governmental organizations with local knowledge to expose problems on the ground, hold public authorities accountable for addressing them, and contribute to developing provisional solutions.

¿Estándares federales alterados? Análisis comparativo de la implementación de la Ley de Bosques en las provincias argentinas (2007-2015)

El 27 de noviembre de 2007 fue sancionada la Ley de Presupuestos Mínimos de Protección Ambiental de los Bosques Nativos con el propósito de detener los desmontes crecientes y de garantizar la conservación de los bosques sobrevivientes. Esta ley resulta particularmente importante para analizar el juego de relaciones entre nación y provincias, porque permite observar tanto el modo en que las provincias responden al mandato constitucional de sancionar leyes complementarias en el área ambiental, como el impacto que estas leyes tienen en la conservación del ambiente. Este trabajo busca determinar cuáles son los alcances de la implementación de la Ley de Bosques en las provincias argentinas. Para ello, se realiza un estudio exploratorio teniendo en cuenta dos indicadores: la adecuación de las normativas provinciales a los criterios y estándares dispuestos en la ley nacional y la tasa de deforestación ilegal por provincia. Con base en estos indicadores, y partiendo de la literatura sobre federalismo, descentralización y políticas públicas, se sostiene que la implementación de la Ley de Bosques no es homogénea en todo el territorio nacional, sino que, en términos teóricos, responde a cuatro escenarios posibles: “implementación efectiva”, “juego de simulación”, “autonomía subnacional” y “carrera hacia abajo”.

Governing Sustainable Forest Management Issues in Polycentric Governance

This article provides the overall view of the international regulatory context for good forest governance (GFG) and sustainable forest management (SFM). It starts by giving a brief overview of the international forestry regime, trade agreements, the Rio conventions, and forestry principles. Subsequently, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) tools for forest assessment and the World Bank Forestry Strategy are discussed. Further, timelines for various regional and international Criteria and Indicators (C&I) for SFM and trade in forest products are highlighted. Finally the leading international voluntary programmes for forest certification are described. From this review, it is clear there is a gap in the international forestry regime, there is an urgent need for an international legally binding forest convention which will guide Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) programmes at the local, national, regional and international/global scale. Here, we argue that FLEGT can catalyse these fragmented elements of an international regime as the EU FLEGT action plan provides a framework to catalyse all dedicated and cross-cutting issue instruments in national forest policy.

Resources and Rules of the Game: Participation of Civil Society in REDD+ and FLEGT‐VPA Processes in Lao PDR

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) aims to achieve its purpose by working across multiple sectors and involving multilevel actors in reducing deforestation and forest degradation in tropical countries. By contrast, the European Union (EU) Action Plan on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) and its Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) focus on forestry and functions at a bilateral state level. The FLEGT Action Plan specifically aims to tackle illegal logging and improve forest governance in countries exporting tropical timber to the EU. Since illegal logging is just one driver of forest degradation, and legalisation of logging does not necessarily reduce deforestation and forest degradation, the two instruments differ in scope. However, by addressing the causes of forest degradation and their underlying governance issues, the FLEGT VPAs and REDD+ share many functional linkages at higher levels of forest policy and forest governance. The contribution and participation of civil society organisations (CSOs) and other actors are imperative to both processes. Our study is based on a survey of key actors (national and international) in REDD+ and FLEGT VPA processes in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR). Our analysis was guided by the theoretical perspectives of the policy arrangement approach and examination of two specific dimensions of this approach, namely resources and rules of the game. This paper argues that participation of CSOs in both processes is crucial because it facilitates and nurtures much needed cooperation between other national and international actors. The paper concludes that participation of CSOs could bring valuable information and knowledge into REDD+ and FLEGT VPA processes, thus contributing to increased legitimacy, justice and transparency.

POWER AND POLITICAL CHANGE WITHIN GLOBAL FOREST GOVERNANCE: THE EU FLEGTACTION PLAN AS RECENTRALISATION

Abstract This article is about policy change in the global governance of forests, focussing on EU regulatory interventions regarding illegal logging and the related world trade. In 2003, the European Union approved the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan in order to counter illegal logging and related trade. This EU legislation may appear as profoundly disruptive of the global governance of forests because it challenges private rulemaking. Private rule-making is no longer recognised as proof of legality but becomes legal only after evaluation and negotiations with the EU and timber-exporting countries. Despite appearances to the contrary, this legislation reflects an even deeper opposition to private rulemaking. Indeed, the EU FLEGT Regulation constitutes a recentralisation of power towards public authorities within the polycentric global governance of forests. This research finding was reached by drawing upon international relations and public policy literature to propose an analytical framework for future research on power displacement and competition within the global governance of forests. From this perspective, I have followed the participation of actors across scales of governance and grounded my work in qualitative methodology, using material drawn from the scientific and expert literature and interviews with stakeholders and EU institution representatives. Keywords: Global governance, European Union, forest policy, multiscalarity, authority, policy change ----- Bibliography: Montouroy, Yves: Power and political change within global forest governance: The EU flagtataion plan as recentralisation, ERIS, 2-2016, pp. 58-76. https://doi.org/10.3224/eris.v3i2.04

POWER AND POLITICAL CHANGE WITHINGLOBAL FOREST GOVERNANCE: THE EU FLEGTACTION PLAN AS RECENTRALISATION

Abstract This article is about policy change in the global governance of forests, focussing on EU regulatory interventions regarding illegal logging and the related world trade. In 2003, the European Union approved the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan in order to counter illegal logging and related trade. This EU legislation may appear as profoundly disruptive of the global governance of forests because it challenges private rulemaking. Private rule-making is no longer recognised as proof of legality but becomes legal only after evaluation and negotiations with the EU and timber-exporting countries. Despite appearances to the contrary, this legislation reflects an even deeper opposition to private rulemaking. Indeed, the EU FLEGT Regulation constitutes a recentralisation of power towards public authorities within the polycentric global governance of forests. This research finding was reached by drawing upon international relations and public policy literature to propose an analytical framework for future research on power displacement and competition within the global governance of forests. From this perspective, I have followed the participation of actors across scales of governance and grounded my work in qualitative methodology, using material drawn from the scientific and expert literature and interviews with stakeholders and EU institution representatives. Keywords: Global governance, European Union, forest policy, multiscalarity, authority, policy change ----- Bibliography: Montouroy, Yves: Power and political change within global forest governance: The EU flagtataion plan as recentralisation, ERIS, 2-2016, pp. 58-76. https://doi.org/10.3224/eris.v3i2.04

Synergies among social safeguards in FLEGT and REDD + in Cameroon

Two key international policy processes have been developed to combat illegal logging and promote the contribution of forests to climate change mitigation in developing countries: the European Union's Action Plan on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) and its Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs), and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change policy on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+). The implementation of these policies raises concerns about unintended adverse effects on the environment and local peoples' livelihoods. To prevent such effects, both processes involve developing country-level safeguards, so that they ‘do no harm’. This paper presents (i) a comparison of the social safeguards of the FLEGT-VPA and REDD+ processes and an explanation of their commonalities and differences, and (ii) an exploration of the potential synergies and the challenges to realizing them. The three main research methods used in the study were semi-structured interviews, content analysis of policy documents, and focus group discussions with local communities and indigenous peoples in south and east Cameroon. Our analysis shows that whereas FLEGT-VPA includes legality-based safeguards with legally binding monitoring and reporting obligations, REDD+ adopts a right-based approach to safeguards. Potential synergies between the two approaches were identified. The synergies lie in the participatory nature of the process of designing benefit sharing mechanisms, strengthening forest and land tenure, and defining the criteria and indicators in FLEGT-VPA and REDD+ safeguards. However, realizing the synergies is challenging, given the existing political economy of Cameroon.

Commodifying Legality? Who and What Counts as Legal in the Indonesian Wood Trade

ABSTRACTThis article examines how legality verification in Indonesia, as developed under the European Union (EU) Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA), shapes who and what count as legal. A review of Indonesia’s evolving legality verification system and in-depth stakeholder interviews reveal a process of commodification driven by international demand for an interchangeable label of “legality.” This interchangeability is produced through a reduction of forest governance to a narrow set of legal standards and third-party, private auditing, which risks obscuring key governance challenges such as corruption and unclear tenure, and excluding most domestic and small-scale operators from economic and legal recognition. Given the market logic of legality licensing, it is more likely to “ratchet down” than “ratchet up” local access to, and benefit from, wood production, unless there is greater support and investment in legal and tenure reforms and improved local benefit capture.

Regulation, formalization, and smallholder timber production in northern Central Java, Indonesia

Forest Law Enforcement, Governance, and Trade agreements between the EU and countries that grow tropical timber aim to complement, alter, or generate new regulatory mechanisms that ensure the legality of timber products. These regulatory changes affect pre-existing policies and practices within timber production networks. The Indonesian-EU Voluntary Partnership Agreement was signed in 2013, and legality verification is scheduled to become mandatory for all smallholders by the end of 2017. Using grower surveys conducted in the Jepara regency of Central Java (n = 204), we generate information on who Jepara smallholders are, what timber species they are growing, and how programs that provide free and discounted seedlings contribute to STP. We use these data to understand how STP operates and how Sistem Verifikasi Legalitas Kayu (SVLK), the Indonesian method for timber legality verification, will affect STP networks and producers. We find that resource provision and oversight of source documentation increase formalization within STP. Our discussion details four policy-relevant insights for promoting STP amid continued formalization.

Experimentalism in Transnational Forest Governance: Implementing EU Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (Flegt) Voluntary Partnership Agreements in Indonesia and Ghana

Over the past decade, the European Union has created a novel experimentalist architecture for transnational forest governance: the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) initiative. This architecture comprises extensive participation by civil society stakeholders in the establishment and revision of open-ended framework goals (bilateral Voluntary Partnership Agreements or VPAs with developing countries aimed at promoting sustainable forest governance and preventing illegal logging) and metrics for assessing progress towards them (legality standards and indicators) through ongoing monitoring and review of local implementation by countries and firms, underpinned by a penalty default mechanism to sanction non-cooperation (the EU Timber Regulation that prohibits operators from placing illegally harvested wood on the European market). This paper analyzes the implementation of VPAs in Indonesia and Ghana, the two countries that are closest to being able to issue FLEGT export licences. A central theme of the analysis is the reciprocal relationship between the experimentalist architecture of the FLEGT initiative and transnational civil society activism, whereby the VPAs’ insistence on stakeholder participation, independent monitoring, and implementation review, underwritten by the EU, empower domestic NGOs with vital local knowledge to expose problems on the ground, hold public authorities accountable for addressing them, and contribute to developing joint solutions.

Participation, public policy-making, and legitimacy in the EU Voluntary Partnership Agreement process: The Cameroon case

This paper discusses how participatory policy-making processes such as the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) negotiations are and should be organised to foster political legitimacy and support. The VPAs are bilateral agreements between the European Union (EU) and timber producing countries. VPAs constitute a cornerstone in EU's Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) programme, the most important tool for the EU to address illegal logging problems. The EU requires that national VPA negotiations include participation by the relevant stakeholders. Based on primary data, we compare the VPA negotiations in Cameroon (2006–2009) with three different ‘ideal’ models of participatory policy-making: the rationalist, the communicative incremental and the mixed model, which we expect have different implications for legitimacy. We conclude that the Cameroonian process is closest to a rationalist model with elements of the mixed model, and that this has increased legitimacy and support only to a limited extent. For future processes in other countries, we recommend stronger elements of the mixed model, and more careful considerations about stakeholder identification processes; how to adapt policy-process to specific contexts; and how to strengthen communication and information flows. Considerations about these elements could also strengthen the applicability of the ideal models.