Title: Challenges faced by small scale community operations in the South and the potential contribution of forest management and Fairtrade certification to meeting these challenges
Abstract: Growing environmental awareness and consumer demand for more socially responsible businesses helped third-party forest management certification emerge in the 1990s as a tool for assessing the environmental and social performance of forest operations. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is an international non-profit membership-based organization which develops standards to ensure that timber and other forest products and services come from responsibly managed forests. FSC‟s international and nationally adapted standards are widely accepted among a broad cross-section of stakeholders as being consistent with the principles of good forest stewardship and sustainability. Several research papers provide evidence that FSC is recognized as an effective policy tool that addresses many ecolo gical and economic forestry issues as well as labor issues, but that the progress of certification and FSC‟s impact is in some geographical and socio-economical areas not as great as was hoped. Although FSC is the largest single forest certification scheme in the world, the expectations about FSC‟s uptake in tropical and low intensity forest management, by small forest owners and by communities have not been completely fulfilled. Several authors recommend that an additional or joint Fair Trade certificatio n together with FSC certification might be a good way to further benefit forest dependent communities and improve their access to markets. The FSC Global Strategy 2007 “Strengthening forest conservation, communities and markets”, among others, identifies complementary programs for certification of small and low intensity managed forest management through additional fair trade certification. Nonetheless, the challenges for the certification and improvement of community managed forests remain considerable. Since 2007 the Fair Trade Labeling Organizations International (FLO) and FSC were engaged in a research process to explore the potential role of Fairtrade in creating market opportunities for community-based foresters. Based on the findings of a feasibility study about the „fit‟ between forest products, the Fairtrade portfolio and market acceptance of such a dual certification, it was recommended to undertake a pilot research phase of up to 18 months to further test and develop the concept. The pilot research started in April 2009. Based on an evaluation of the outcomes of this pilot phase, FLO and FSC will then make a final decision on whether to approve dual certification for timber and other forest products. The authors will discuss the options for small-scale operations to overcome challenges such as competitive pressure and inadequate access to capital and represent the findings from the feasibility study, the research design and preliminary results.
Publication Year: 2009
Publication Date: 2009-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 2
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