As of 2013, however, the Congo basin had the largest area of certified natural tropical forest in the world, with about 5.3 million ha. This is still a relatively small proportion (ca. 7–13%) of all FMUs in the region. We believe it is time, before certification expands further, to assess whether the social impacts in certified FMUs show any sign of improvement compared to noncertified ones. This comparison is also timely because (1) the legal frameworks of the study countries have many similarities to the social requirements of FSC certification, thus allowing an indirect assessment of the legal frameworks’ social impacts, and (2) some tropical producer countries recently proposed recognizing FSC-certified timber as compliant with the requirements of the EU’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan. Once the Action Plan is fully operational in those countries, the FSC-certified timber produced there could be exported as legal timber. This occasional paper assesses whether the implementation of FSC certification in FMUs in three Congo basin countries has had positive additional impacts on (1) the working and living conditions of logging companies’ employees and their families, (2) the effectiveness and legitimacy of the institutions set up to regulate relationships between logging companies and neighbouring communities, and (3) the local populations’ rights to and customary uses of forests.

Type of Case
Printed publication (book, sourcebook, journal article…)

Publisher
CIFOR

Region
Africa

Biome
Tropical

Forest Type
All forest types (natural and planted)

Primary Designated Function
Production