Current Issues in Forest Certification
Forest certification is a market-based tool for third party auditing of sustainable management practices in production forests. In June 2003, the world had 160 million hectares of certified forests, equivalent to 3.5 % of the world’s forests. Labels for forest products deriving from certified forests constitute a “single-issue label” which is based on voluntary certification. As far as possible, compatibility with WTO Rules with regard to market access, non-discrimination, technical barriers to trade and other WTO provisions is indicated.
Currently, several issues of political, strategic and operational concern are the main issues under review:
• The interface between standard setting for forest certification and national/regional Criteria and Indicator processes (C&I);
• Assessment of certification schemes;
• Cooperation between international certification schemes, like FSC and PEFC, and regional/national certification initiatives with regard to standard setting and procedures;
• Mutual recognition, mutual understanding and forms of cooperation amongst certification schemes.
1. C&I processes
The broad objectives of certification and C&I are identical: to promote good, sustainable management of forests. However, there are also important differences between these two concepts, especially regarding scale, purpose and participating actors. An appropriate relationship between C&I and certification can result in greater commitment to SFM by different actors and interest groups. For example, ITTO’s C&I training and field testing showed that a major motivator for many countries/forest managers in collecting data for indicators was the desire to eventually seek certification of their timber products.
In many countries and in many certification schemes, regional or national C&I have been used as the basis or starting point for certification, when developing performance standards. Many C&I based certification schemes have also taken note of the FSC or PEFC principles, criteria and indicators and made efforts to ensure a degree of compatibility and to use C&I as a useful reference. C&I based certification is driven by many forest owners, industry and government representatives, whereas many environmental NGOs representatives continue to maintain a more independent approach, such as that of the FSC.
2. C&I processes – Conclusions
SFM policies and trade policies are still separate from each other. Except in the case of ITTO, C&I for forest management, trade and trade-related aspects are not sufficiently linked in governmental deliberations at regional and/or international levels. However, there are opportunities to bring them closer to achieve increased coherence of policies and strategies. C&I could be used as a bridging tool between trade and SFM, as a neutral, scientifically sound and politically accepted framework for promoting SFM and monitoring progress. By using C&I as a tool to strengthen the trade-SFM nexus, forest certification would benefit and market access would be increased.
3. Assessment of certification schemes
A recently launched paper by FERN, Brussels, assesses the standards of all major forest certification schemes and concludes that only FSC constitutes a truly credible forest certification system. The paper identifies difficulties in independent standard setting based on broad participation, lack of transparency in reporting, weak consideration of social issues, including land and forest user rights, as well as a general devaluing of forest certification, allowing for “business-as-usual practices”.
In late 2003, the World Bank/WWF Alliance for Forest Conservation and Sustainable Use published a questionnaire entitled “Questionnaire for Assessing the Comprehensiveness of Certification Schemes/Systems (QACC)” outlining the criteria for evaluating forest certification schemes and their application in assessment processes. The document indicates that the questionnaire could possibly be used for forest sector lending by the World Bank, based on the new WB Forest Strategy and Operational Policy (OP).
The Forests Dialogue (TFD), initiated and coordinated by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), has launched a “Legitimacy Thresholds Model” to accommodate the diversity of forest certification systems. This aims at an agreed methodology to assess the credibility of forest certification systems against defined credibility or legitimacy thresholds. A meeting of TFD on the issue of assessments of forest certification schemes was held in London in March with participation of selected representatives from governments, forest industry, forest owners and major international NGOs, as well as the World Bank. Representatives of Forest Certification Schemes were not invited. The meeting’s objective was to draw up an “independent assessment framework” and plan its development.
4. Assessment of certification schemes – Conclusion
The current discussion on independent assessments of international and national forest certification schemes will not necessarily lead to improved mutual understanding between the schemes and their stakeholders, and may even hamper the development of national forest certification schemes. A more transparent, participatory process is needed.
5. Cooperation between international and national certification schemes
In the International Tropical Timber Committee (ITTC) at its 33rd Session, the so-called “phased approach” to forest certification was discussed. The concept carries the potential to bring national-level work on forest certification closer to those forest enterprises which face considerable difficulties in complying with principles, criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management on a short-term basis. By adopting such an approach, more forest enterprises, particularly in the tropical region, could be reached in order to improve the impact of forest certification on the sustainability of forest management.
The international forest certification schemes, namely PEFC and FSC, are currently cooperating with emerging national certification schemes, in particular in standard setting. This positive development should be supported by all stakeholders and their constituencies. Civil society groupings and the private sector, in particular forest owners/operators, forest industry associations and also processing industries, should become increasingly involved in these processes in order to increase their mutual understanding of various concerns and the design of a phased approach to national certification. This means that this process of cooperation between national and international forest certification schemes should go beyond standard setting and the institutionalization of the respective scheme.
With the ever-increasing number of certification schemes, the role of governments in certification is also growing; they must set the broad rules of the game and follow up possible political implications of certification implementation. It is certainly the role of governments to identify complementary measures to create an enabling environment for forest certification. This trend may also contribute to the increasing role of C&I in forest certification. However, forest certification should not lose its characteristic of being a market-based instrument. Thus, the interface between policy processes such as C&I implementation and national forest programmes needs to be better determined, in order to increase synergies and avoid counterproductive interventions. However, the role of national governments and ODA support, as well as that of international organizations like FAO and World Bank, should lead to effective partnerships during the initial phase of establishment of the schemes.
All certification schemes have one problem in common: Only a rather small percentage of consumers (varying, however, greatly between markets) care at all about forest certification and product labels. Many wish only to know that the forest product comes from a well managed forest and the proliferation of product labels is of little help in this regard. For better market access, the key seems therefore to be reliable, credible information.
6. Cooperation between international and national certification schemes – Conclusions
Existing forest certification schemes should concentrate their efforts on the consolidation of the existing system and identify useful cooperation without losing their competitiveness in the market place.
7. Mutual recognition, mutual understanding and new forms of cooperation
The proliferation of certification schemes seems to have exacerbated the need for an international framework for their mutual recognition and a set of internationally agreed C&I as reference for a credible forest certification. The aforementioned initiative on an independent assessment of forest certification schemes is meant to be useful in this regard. Difficulties in understanding the “thresholds model”, viewed by some constituencies as the lowest common denominator and thus decreasing the standards of SFM, certainly do not clarify the way ahead or increase the mutual recognition approach.
As the current mainstream, it can be stated that the approach of “mutual recognition” between the schemes is not the order of the day. The debate between different certification schemes, however, continues and a common understanding among the schemes is gradually emerging. Since constituencies and their objectives vary greatly between the schemes, in particular the international schemes, many drawbacks are encountered in arriving at mutual understanding.
To advance such mutual understanding between different certification schemes, FAO facilitated a meeting of CEOs of national and international forest certification schemes in June 2003 in Borgo Spante, Italy. This was done in close cooperation with ITTO and the African Timber Organization (ATO). Although participants’ views on priorities and emerging issues varied widely, the call for collectively promoting information exchange was unchallenged and it was emphasized that the dialogue between international and national forest certification schemes should continue.
8. FAO’s potential contribution
FAO stands ready to facilitate further discussions between national and international certification schemes and interested parties. FAO is prepared to organize a meeting in the second part of 2004 in Rome/Italy with the aim of addressing some of the aforementioned issues, namely:
• Cooperation between international and national certification schemes in terms of standard setting, institutionalization and operations;
• Provision of more information on the role of certified products in the market place;
• Increasing mutual understanding between the schemes and assisting in the identification of a useful interface between the schemes without damaging the competitive nature of the various schemes in the market place.
Over and above the aforementioned meeting, FAO’s mandate in capacity building would enable the organization to support developing countries in phased approaches to SFM and forest certification.
