The Potential of Sustainable Forestry Certification for Smallholder Tree Growing - Smallholder Tree Growing for Rural Development and Environmental Services - page 204

must conclude that the main aim of sustainability certification, saving tropical for-
ests, is still in its infancy. The reasons for this will be discussed in Section 10.8. As
yet, forestry certification has lead mainly to qualitative improvements of forestry
management in the North.
In what follows, we will focus further on certification under the authority of the
FSC, because it is the best-known scheme in the developing world, and has recently
established a program specifically aimed at smallholders in developing countries
(see Section 10.9).

10.6 General FSC Requirements

To certify a forest area under the FSC certification scheme, a number of require-
ments must be met. In principle these relate to the three dimensions of sustainabil-
ity, people, planet and profit, but in practice they focus on environmental and social
conditions. The requirements are laid down in four different levels: principles, cri-
teria, indicators and verifiers.
Principles are qualitative requirements at a policy level. This means that princi-
ples are issues that can be debated in a policy discourse. The international FSC
principles apply to the following issues (in part as principles, in part just as issues)
(www.fsc.org):

1. Compliance with laws (certification must not be illegal according to the
national laws in question)
2. Tenure and usage rights
3. Indigenous peoples' rights
4. Community regulations and workers' rights
5. Benefits from the forest
6. Environmental impact
7. Management plan
8. Monitoring and assessment
9. Maintenance of high conservation value forests
10. Plantations

These principles are specified in the criteria, which all have to be met for certifica-
tion. The FSC has 44 criteria in total for sustainable forestry management, with
eight additional criteria for plantations.

Table 10.1 Total forest area, certified forest area, and forest area in developing countries (in
million hectares) (Data from 2000: FAO 2001; data from 2006: Kollert and Lagan 2007)
Total forest area in 2000 3,869 Plantations in 2000 187

(including plantations)
Certified total forest area in 2000 210 Certified plantations in 2000 23

- of which in developing countries 1.8

- idem, in 2006 3.6