Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
10.1 Introduction
The general question in this chapter is what role sustainable forestry certification
can play in the conservation of forests by smallholders. Certification is typically a
communication instrument, providing information between stakeholders in a given
value chain.
Firstly, an overview will be given of the different types of certification, i.e., those
related to environmental certification and to the broader sustainability certification.
Section 10.3 will outline the potential benefits of certification for different stake-
holders in the chain of custody and Section 10.4 will deal with the benefits for
forest managers and workers, and a link will be made to the chapter from Lasco
(Chapter 9), stressing the need to involve all relevant stakeholders in the value chain
of reforestation. Section 10.5 is an overview of global developments in forestry
certification, while Section 10.6 goes into the specific requirements set for certifica-
tion under the authority of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the oldest global
initiative in this field. In Section 10.7, specific attention is paid to the development
of the requirements set for forest plantations, with an example in an industrialized
country (the Netherlands). Section 10.8 discusses the barriers to the certification of
smallholders' forests, particularly in developing countries, followed in Section 10.9
by a description of a new FSC program that focuses on small and low-intensity
forest management and addresses some of the existing barriers. This chapter con-
cludes with a case study on the prospects for smallholder forestry certification in
the Philippines.
10.2
Environmental and Sustainability Certification
Two main types of certification can be distinguished, environmental and sustainability
certification. Environmental certification focuses on the environmental perform-
ance of production processes of the resources and the resulting products. According
to the triple-bottom-line approach (Elkington 1997), sustainability certification has
a broader scope, including requirements of social, environmental and economic
dimensions.
The best-known environmental certificates are founded on the standards of the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO). There is the 14000 series,
with the 14001 standard underlying the certification of environmental management
systems (EMS) of industrial companies (ISO 1996). The 14020 series deals with
three types of product labelling: product labels with third party verification (Type I
labels according to ISO 14024 [ISO 1999a]), product claims by the companies
themselves (Type II labelling according to ISO 14021 [ISO 1999b]) and product
declarations, which are information sheets, comprising the environmental specifi-
cations of the product and its upstream processes (Type III labelling according to
ISO 14025 [ISO 2000]). There is also the 14040 series dealing with Life Cycle
Assessment or LCA, which is required for the underpinning of Type III labelling
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