Building confidence in certification systems 
a perspective from community forestry

Francisco Chapela

Estudios Rurales y Asesorķa Campesina (Mexico)

Rome, 18 February 2001


Community Forestry in Mexico

· 80% of forests in Mexico are legally owned by indigenous or peasant communities. 60% of round wood supply comes from management units ran by these communities.

· About 8 million people inhabit in the forest areas, and depend on forests to live.

· Population densities are above the world average. Human pressure is high.

· Altough most of the forests in Mexico are secondary, the country hosts about 10% of all the species in the planet.

· Mexico's biological diversity can be explained in part AS A CONSEQUENCE of traditional management systems


Mexico Forests




Potential for Community Forestry in the world


Community Forestry: fostering an stewardship relationship

In a community forestry context:

· People lives from the land

· People cannot take risks; therefore landscape and species diversity is promoted

· Forests are maintained and shaped by human activities.


Key components of sustainable community forestry systems

· Territories: community access to land is secured.

· Management system: Local adaptive management is feasible. People can take management decisions and can learn from their decisions.

· Equity: Forest management produces concrete benefits to local people.

 


Territories

Without territories, community stewardship is not feasible. Therefore, a credible certification system should:

· Consider community land as the basic forest management unit. Broad national-level approaches are not enough.

· Consider the extent indigenous or communal territories are being recognized and secured. Check ILO conventions are observed when applicable.

· Check that communal decision mechanisms are in place.


Management system

(Tropical) Forests are complex systems. Therefore, adaptive management approaches are needed, rather than deterministic ones. To be credible, a certification system should:

· Consider the extent indigenous or local communities are taking the basic management decisions. Not just consulted.

· Check that an appropriate monitoring and evaluation system is set up, so corrective decisions can be taken as needed.

· Verify that the monitoring and evaluation system consider both economic and environmental performance.


Equity

Without clear and concrete benefits, there is no incentive for community stewardship. Therefore, a credible certification system should:

· Evaluate how long the management system uses the main production opportunities.

· Check that community members have basically equal opportunities to benefit from the management system.

· Check that there are mechanisms for social investment, such as education or health care programs.


Institutional issues

In social terms, all international certification systems face one or several challenges to be credible. Among others, these challenges include:

· Become simple enough to be transparent and replicable in a multi-cultural context; i.e. local and external evaluations, should produce similar results.

· Be economically non-discriminatory and become affordable for communities with relatively small FMU.

· Be independent from both FMU coordinators and from government officers.

· Avoid discriminatory practices, such as have only certifiers from the "north", or only bureaucrats deciding certification standards and procedures.

 

Building confidence in certification systems 
a perspective from community forestry

Francisco Chapela

Estudios Rurales y Asesorķa Campesina (Mexico)

[email protected]

http://www.mesoamerica.org.mx/era/index.html