مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد تاثیر صدور گواهی جنگل برای شرکت های جنگلداری شیلی – الزویر 2018

Forest certification, under both the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the PEFC-endorsed Chilean CERTFOR schemes, has been widely adopted in both the native and plantation forestry sectors in Chile. This study of the impacts of forest certification on Chilean forestry businesses is based in-depth interviews with 72 actors representing a diversity of roles and perspectives in the Chilean forestry sector. The impacts of certification have been greatest in the plantation forestry sector, and for larger businesses. These impacts include the cessation of deforestation for plantation establishment, rehabilitation of natural ecosystems, greater benefits to local communities, and the development of a positive dialogue between forestry businesses and their stakeholders. However, certification has not resolved some long-standing conflicts between forestry businesses and other actors, notably in relation to Indigenous peoples’ land claims and workers’ rights. Both certification schemes in Chile have promoted legal compliance; FSC certification is encouraging improvements beyond legal compliance, and deepening the changes initiated by CERTFOR. The results illustrate how certification can contribute to effective hybrid governance regimes, but also of the limits of certification in addressing deeply-entrenched social conflicts. Nevertheless, the impacts of certification for Chilean forestry businesses and their stakeholders have largely been positive.

Introduction

The scale and adverse impacts of unsustainable forest management in the second half of the 20th Century prompted many governance responses at a range of scales, from international to local (Lister, 2011; McDermott et al., 2010; Humphreys, 2014). Since the mid-1980s, promoting sustainable forest management (SFM) has been a central concern of forest governance globally. SFM aims to enhance and balance the environmental, social and economic values of all types of forests (see definition in UN, 2007). However, the lack of progress in developing credible international intergovernmental arrangements to address deforestation and forest degradation (Humphreys, 2014), and the limited progress at national and subnational levels in many countries (e.g. McDermott et al., 2010), have catalyzed the emergence of forest certification, a form of “private” or “non-state”, “market-based” governance (Auld et al., 2008; Auld, 2014; Cashore et al., 2006). Since forest certification was initiated by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in 1995, certification has both diversified – as other actors initiated a number of competing forest certification schemes (Lister, 2011) – and expanded, to now encompass some 500 million ha of forests globally (FSC, 2017; PEFC, 2017), around a third of the world’s production forests (Auld, 2014). While natural tropical forests were the initial focus of forest certification, forests in all geographic regions, and both natural (syn. native) and plantation forests, are now the subject of certification (FSC 2016, Auld, 2014, Cubbage et al., 2010, Mikulková et al., 2015). As the scale and significance of certification as a forest governance mechanism has increased, so too has interest in the impacts of certification (e.g. Gale, 2014; Lewis and Davis, 2015; Miteva et al., 2015; Poynton, 2015). However, as many of these authors note, our knowledge and understanding of forest certification impacts are limited, and the majority of studies to date have focused on the impact of certification in natural forest management. This study investigates the impacts of certification in both the native and plantation forestry sectors in Chile. We first review what has been reported by other studies about the impacts of certification, and describe our research framework and methods. We then present our findings from applying this framework to the Chilean forestry sector, and discuss our results and their implications.