CHAPTER 2: GLOBAL (TROPICAL) FORESTS GOVERNANCE
2.4 Conceptual framework for sustainable forest management
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the food system; transforming global business-as-usual practices;31 systematically improving governance; decoupling the demand for deforestation and the demand for economic growth and food;32 and other sustainable management for forests and forest products. Furthermore, these policies should be used in synergies to address the inter-dependent proximate and underlying causes as well as the complexity of the deforestation and forest degradation process.
2.4 Conceptual framework for sustainable forest management
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reversal of forest land conversion, biodiversity loss and forest/ecosystem degradation. The economic goals include promoting trade in sustainable timber and other forest products and common but differentiated responsibilities (e.g.
UNCED 1992, Rio Declaration, Principle 7; UNFCCC 1992, Article 3.1). Social welfare goals include livelihood, poverty alleviation, indigenous and labour rights.
There are also other goals such as improving law enforcement (ITTA 2006, Article 1(n)), strengthening international cooperation, and a participatory decision-making process (UNCED 1992, Rio Declaration, Principle 10; CBD 1992, Article 14.1(a)), etc.
Parallel to the above broader normative notions or principles, there are two other distinct forms of instrument that are used to evaluate forest management via a consistent, cohesive and overarching scheme. Those instruments employ a thorough definition of SFM and translate principles into measurable goals. The first set of instruments are the criteria and indicators for SFM developed and catalysed through international agreements and inter-governmental processes.
Instead of normative objectives, they emphasize national level monitoring and measurement. The second type of instrument is a market-driven, private certification scheme. These schemes specifically address the evaluation of procedural performance at the local level, namely the individual forest management unit and/or its associated forest producers (McDermott et al., 2010).
The criteria and indicator processes for SFM have been developed in seven major regions and two international initiatives,33 engaging 150 countries since 1992 after the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio Summit), which produced the Forest Principles and Agenda 21 (Wijewardana, 2008). The Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) is a voluntary arrangement consisting of 14 international organizations and secretariats34 to work for better cooperation and coordination on forests. The CPF analysed the above nine Processes and summarised seven thematic basic elements/criteria underpinning sustainable
33 These criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management Processes are the African Timber Organization Process, the Dry Forest in Asia Process, the Dry-Zone Africa Process, the International Tropical Timber Organization Process, the Lepaterique Process of Central America, the Montreal Process, the Near East Process, the Pan-European Forest Process and the Tarapoto Proposal for the Sustainability of the Amazon Forest (Wijewardana, 2008).
34 Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD Secretariat) , Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Global Environment Facility (GEF Secretariat) , International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO), United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD Secretariat), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF Secretariat), United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC Secretariat), World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), World Bank
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forest management (CPF, 2004) that are universally common to all at national or sub-national levels. They include:
(1) the extent of forest resources;
(2) Biological diversity;
(3) Forest health and vitality;
(4) Productive functions of forest resources;
(5) Protective functions of forest resources;
(6) Socio-economic functions;
(7) the Legal, policy and institutional framework.
For instance, the FAO’s Global Forest Resource Assessment 2005 is based on this thematic framework (FAO, 2006). These criteria provide information for policy decisions and characterize the fundamental components of SFM. They are used to monitor and access trends in forest conditions and management across scales, and to further ascertain progress towards SFM.
Private forest certification uses market incentives to promote SFM through labelling and price premiums based on concerted environmental and social standards for responsible and sustainable forestry. Among numerous forest certification schemes, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) was established earliest and is commonly known as the most stringent and prescriptive set of standards (Bartley, Koos, & Samel, 2015, p.87). The FSC has developed ten principles and criteria for responsible forestry that can be applied worldwide (FSC, 2015). Here for the purpose of clarifying what exactly constitutes SFM, there are full details of the ten principles below in Table 5.
Table 5: The FSC Principles for sustainable forest management (1) Compliance with
laws
The Organization shall comply with all applicable laws, regulations and nationally-ratified international treaties, conventions and agreements.
(2) Workers’ Rights and Employment Conditions
The Organization shall maintain or enhance the social and economic wellbeing of workers.
(3) Indigenous Peoples’ Rights
The Organization shall identify and uphold Indigenous Peoples’ legal and customary rights of ownership, use and management of land, territories and resources affected by management activities.
(4) Community
Relations The Organization shall contribute to maintaining or enhancing the social and economic wellbeing of local communities.
(5) Benefits from the Forest
The Organization shall efficiently manage the range of multiple products and services of the Management Unit to maintain or enhance long term economic viability and the range of environmental and social benefits.
(6) Environmental
Values and Impacts The Organization shall maintain, conserve and/or restore ecosystem services and environmental values of the
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Management Unit, and shall avoid, repair or mitigate negative environmental impacts.
(7) Management Planning
The Organization shall have a management plan consistent with its policies and objectives and proportionate to scale, intensity and risks of its management activities. The management plan shall be implemented and kept up to date based on monitoring information in order to promote adaptive management. The associated planning and procedural documentation shall be sufficient to guide staff, inform affected stakeholders and interested stakeholders and to justify management decisions.
(8) Monitoring and Assessment
The Organization shall demonstrate that, progress towards achieving the management objectives, the impacts of management activities and the condition of the Management Unit, are monitored and evaluated proportionate to the scale, intensity and risk of management activities, in order to implement adaptive management.
(9) High
Conservation Values
The Organization shall maintain and/or enhance the High Conservation Values in the Management Unit through applying the precautionary approach.
(10) Implementation of Management Activities
Management activities conducted by or for The Organization for the Management Unit shall be selected and implemented consistent with The Organization’s economic, environmental and social policies and objectives and in compliance with the Principles and Criteria collectively.
Source: (FSC, 2015) These principles address legal, technical, environmental and social requirements.
Legal requirements include, for example, clearly defined rights to the resource, legal operations and control of unauthorized activities. Technical requirements are those such as management and operational planning, forest inventory and assessment, economic viability, training and capacity-building and monitoring, etc.
Environmental requirements include waste management, conservation and environmental protection, assessment of full environmental value and actions to minimize negative impacts. Social requirements involve the safety and health of the labour, worker’s rights (e.g. fair pay and control of slave and child labour), assessment of social impacts, recognition and protection of the rights of indigenous people (Nussbaum & Simula, 2005). The social requirements are one of the three pillars of the broad SFM concept and are hence an important element in the forest certification’s principles and criteria. Adequate social institutions facilitate economic and environmental sustainability, for instance, by addressing the accountability of stakeholders. It is for this reason, that although social aspects of the SFM are not the focus of this research, they are still listed here for the sake of completeness.
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The criteria and indicators for SFM are mainly applied to standing forests. They cannot address the deforestation causes which originated outside the forest sector.
That is to say if forest clearing takes place, there will be no forest for management.
Notably, there are a number of other sustainable certification schemes for tropical deforestation driven commodities, such as palm oil and soy.35 As the primary divers for tropical deforestation, they are closely related to SFM, however with similar but different sets of criteria and indicators. One of the most essential criteria related to tropical forest for these commodities, for example, is the no deforestation principle. To achieve global SMF goals, it is absolutely necessary to include the discussions and efforts from these commodity certification schemes in addition to those for timber production. Chapter 4 therefore discusses in detail one of the most influential tropical deforestation risk commodities - sustainable palm oil production.
All in all, the international community has attempted to address the issue of deforestation since the 1990s. For the reason that, as mentioned in this section, the negative impacts of local/regional tropical deforestation have significant global repercussions. After reviewing the deforestation problems and the ultimate policy objectives of sustainable forest management, the next section discusses the international governance framework and various efforts from both public and private sectors working towards the sustainable forestry goals.
3 Global (tropical) forest governance
Forest governance can be broadly defined as comprising all public and private, formal and informal regulatory structures, the interactions between public and private actors and the effects of either on forests (Giessen & Buttoud, 2014). This section introduces the core components of global forest governance, covering international agreements (3.1), international organizations (3.2), extra-territorial measures on forest legality (3.3), private arrangements (3.4) and non-profit organizations in civic society (3.5).
3.1 Global agreements with forest-focused or -related