certification Archives - Page 6 of 7 - Resilient Landscapes (RL)

Smallholder Farmers’ Knowledge of Regulations Governing the Sale of Timber and Supply Chains in Gunungkidul District, Indonesia

Smallholder timber plantations may offer opportunities for farmers to increase their income. Nonetheless, such opportunities are often lost largely due to unfavorable regulations imposed on harvesting and marketing of timber. Adverse impacts are worsened because the regulations are not effectively communicated to smallholder farmers. We assessed the level of smallholder knowledge of existing regulations and found it very low. In part, this correlated to their socio-demographic characteristics. Poor literacy skills and a low level of education make it difficult for older farmers’ to increase their knowledge. This is compounded by the limited information channels that can reach the farmers. Improving smallholders’ knowledge by providing information concerning markets and regulations in a timely and clear manner could help smallholders exercise coping strategies and priorities when selling their timber that would in turn reduce the negative impacts of regulations. The roles of village authorities could be crucial. They are close to the smallholders and could channel the information. The government could provide training and incentives for them to be more active in communicating the regulations to the smallholders.

Certifying Environmental Social Responsibility: Special Issue

This Special Issue aims to contribute to the emerging science on how to maintain and rehabilitate biodiversity and ecosystem services effectively in the tropics where agricultural expansion has shaped the landscapes. Food production as a provisioning ecosystem service dominates direct economic value and employment in roughly half the world. Its sustainability, or lack thereof, depends on how the trade-offs between human activities and ecosystem services, beyond the provision of food, are balanced and managed locally and globally.
This Special Issue is a result of a research program by CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry. This program ‘zooms out’ from the details of certification schemes as such and ask the broader questions of when, where and how certification responses arise to what types of issues, by whom they are initiated and what broader consequences they have.
Complete list of articles are:

Challenges for developing Forest Stewardship Council certification for ecosystem services: How to enhance local adoption?

The rise of ecosystem services (ES) as a conservation and management tool has changed the way forests are conceived, but so far its translation into management actions has been limited. In this paper, we discuss the development of certification of forest ecosystem services (FES) from the perspective of those implementing it at the local level. We focus on the lessons that emerged from applying the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification framework at selected sites in Chile, Indonesia, Nepal and Vietnam.
Our results indicate a clear relationship between local and global levels in the development of FSC FES certification. Although the FSC already had a broad vision of ES, it was only through local-level learning within a specific pilot experiment that the vision evolved and resulted in more formal FES certification becoming part of FSC forest management certification. We also found that those sites where participatory approaches to management and decision-making were applied could work with an undefined vision of the future system, and still successfully design and implement management activities. However, overall the lack of specific vision and detailed information about future FES certification was problematic in attracting market interest in FSC certified ES.

Certification systems for verifying carbon trading from forestry and other land uses and their effectiveness to deliver non-carbon benefits

We review seven certification systems for verifying carbon trading from forestry and other land uses, and evaluate evidence of their effectiveness in generating social and environmental co-benefits. Published research on non-carbon co-benefits was located by searching the three principal bibliographic databases in this area of science: CABI, ISI Web of Science Core Collection and SCOPUS. We included studies published in English from 2000 to 2016. Our searches yielded 679 studies after duplicates were removed. Of these 11 studies presented relevant results from projects that had been certified by one of the carbon certification standards. Although there is some evidence of positive impacts related to land use governance, local livelihoods and non-carbon ecosystem services, there were studies reporting negative aspects of carbon certification. Overall the evidence-base is very limited and there is a real need for more research on the social and environmental impacts of carbon certification standards.

The Effect of forest law enforcement governance and trade license on competitiveness of Indonesian wooden furniture in the European Union market

In May 2003 the European Union (EU) initiated an action plan (FLEGT – Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade) followed by the issuance of EUTR (European Union Timber Regulation), effective March 2013, which prohibits the entry of illegal timber and timber products into the EU market. Indonesia as one of the exporting countries reacts with the FLEGT-VPA since 2007 where the Indonesia Timber Legality Assurance System (Sistem Verifikasi Legalitas Kayu – SVLK) forms the basis of the agreement andrecognized by the EU through FLEGT licensing of November 15, 2016. This study is intended to examine the effect of licenses on competitiveness of Indonesian wooden furnitureproducts in EU market. The study covers 8 provinces of wooden furniture center in Indonesia. The methods used include interviews, surveys, focus group discussions; involving producers and related institutions. The data obtained were processed and analyzed using Diamond Porter Model. The FLEGT license has increased the competitiveness of Indonesian wooden furniture in facilitating entry into the EU market. However, there are other factors at play such as relatively new nature of FLEGT-VPA and FLEGT licensing, transition period that every major policy process such FLEGT Licenses experience, level of implementation the EUTR as an incentive towards FLEGT-VPA, timber price, quality, availability, technical performance, logistics and fashion trends, especially for furniture retailers. All these factors have implications for the competitiveness of Indonesia’s FLEGT licensed timber in the EU.

Social impacts of the Forest Stewardship Council certification in the Congo Basin

We assess whether the implementation of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification scheme in the Congo basin has had positive additional impacts–as compared to existing regulatory frameworks applied in noncertified Forest Management Units (FMU)–on (1) the working and living conditions of logging companies’ employees and their families, (2) the effectiveness and legitimacy of the institutions and benefit-sharing mechanisms set up to regulate relationships between logging companies and neighbouring communities, and (3) the local populations’ rights to and customary uses of forests. Results on (1) and (2) suggest that several significant differences exist between certified and noncertified FMUs. Results are instead mitigated on (3): Companies in certified FMUs tend to better enforce the law, but this may have unwanted negative impacts on customary uses. We discuss the reasons why several positive social outcomes materialised in certified vs. noncertified areas, and suggest possible improvements as well as required further research.

Certify and shift blame, or resolve issues? Environmentally and socially responsible global trade and production of timber and tree crops

Certification of adherence to social and environmental standards allows companies involved in the (global) trade of commodities to dissociate themselves from negative impacts in the public eye. It can go beyond compliance with legal requirements. Certification can be an attempt to shift blame to uncertified others, but it can also contribute to resolving the underlying issues of concern. We provide a framework for a study of when, where and how certification schemes emerge and evolve, with specific attention to the degree to which underlying issues get addressed. Three strands of literature are combined in this framework (1) the issue-attention cycle as a schematic representation of public concerns shaping policy responses; (2) the management swing potential defined as the gap between best and worst current production systems and the basis for defining standards and (3) global value chains that link distant producers and consumers, and the power relations along these chains, including standards and certification. Based on literature review, we introduce a set of four propositions that inform testable specific hypotheses. We outline questions for reviews, in subsequent papers of this issue, of the experience on timber, oil palm, coffee, cacao and rubber as tropical-forest-margin commodities dominated by global trade.

Timber certification as a catalyst for change in forest governance in Cameroon, Indonesia, and Peru

Policy instruments targeting environmental, social, and economic sustainability cover both local and global geographies and stem from both the public and private sectors. These policy instruments do not work in silos but interact throughout the regulatory process. In this paper we discuss interactions between public regulations and private certification that affect how forests are managed in three tropical countries: Indonesia, Cameroon, and Peru. We show how the governance regime in each of the countries has evolved in response to environmental and social issues. We focus on the Forest Stewardship Council’s forest stewardship certification as it is the main global certification scheme in the tropical region and look at its role in attaining sustainability in timber production.

Case study results from Indonesia, Cameroon, and Peru indicate that certification influences all stages of the policy process: agenda setting and negotiation; implementation, and monitoring and enforcement. Results also suggest that certification introduces positive changes in management practices and improves social and environmental performance. However, its influence in attaining broader-scale sustainability is limited by a low level of uptake, notably in tropical countries where the costs of getting certified and maintaining certification are high and the certification criteria are rather complex, as well as by some of its inherent characteristics, as it can only solve problems at the forest management unit level.

Sustainable Palm Oil Production project synthesis: Understanding and anticipating global challenges

Key messages

Several sustainability certification schemes have been developed for palm oil; however, the field impacts of these schemes remain highly uncertain. The Sustainable Palm Oil Production (SPOP) project, funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR), was aimed at consolidating and deepening the scientific basis of these schemes.
SPOP field work undertaken in Indonesia and Cameroon highlighted the large variability in practices and impacts of oil palm systems. Our main results related to the uncovering of the multiplicity of growers and their trajectories, and identifying room for improvement and the need for recommendations adapted to the various grower contexts and strategies.
The SPOP project made it explicit that visions of sustainability and global challenges vary greatly among growers and other stakeholders involved in the palm oil sector. These diverging conceptions are most likely to induce bottlenecks in the definition and implementation of good practices and should be accounted for in the refinement of sustainability criteria.
Within the SPOP project, we investigated possible futures for oil palm using participatory prospective analyses and multi-agent-based modeling work. Our research work showed that capacity development and the organizational capacity of smallholders, fair partnerships and combined forms of governance are key drivers in ensuring the uptake of good practices and sustainable development at the landscape scale.

Beyond good wood: Exploring strategies for small-scale forest growers and enterprises to benefit from legal and sustainable certification in Indonesia

There is a growing trend towards small-scale forest operators engaging in certification initiatives in response to growing demands for certified timber. We aimed to analyse whether certified smallholders gain better access to timber markets and better financial incentives. We used three smallholder forest enterprises from Gunungkidul and Kulon Progo districts, Java, Indonesia as case studies of different managerial operations. Two were farmer cooperatives and the other was an external trading company in partnership with village-level farmer groups. Different certification schemes and managerial approaches were analysed whether such factors influenced the ability of smallholders to access certified timber markets and obtain improved offers for their timber. We found that smallholders find it challenging to enter and participate in certified timber markets and to obtain the promised premium prices. The obvious costs of certification and uncertain benefits are major challenges for smallholders. Even when market opportunities are present, certification alone is insufficient to tap into these markets. Certified forest enterprises need dedicated managers with adequate entrepreneurial skills to establish networks and contacts with potential buyers, and to actively seek information on what is specified by certified timber processors.

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