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Category: Forestry
Author: Dave Hughell, Rebecca Butterfield
Organization: Rainforest Alliance
Date: February, 2008
Language: English
Number of pages: 17
Eco-Index summary: The Rainforest Alliance prepared this report to understand the impact of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification on forest conservation in the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala. The report calculated deforestation rates and examined the occurrence of wildfires on FSC certified concessions, and compared those with deforestation rates and wildfire occurrences on the other land use zones within the reserve. The report provides background information about the reserve’s creation and structure; Rainforest Alliance activities within the Reserve; and provides an overview of the problem of deforestation in the Reserve. Results are provided, and conclude that from 2002 to 2007, the average annual deforestation rate for the entire Reserve and the core protected areas was twenty times higher than the deforestation rate for the FSC certified concessions.
Title: Wood Products Legality Verification Systems: An Assessment
Organization: Greenpeace
Date: January, 2008
Language: English
Number of pages: 12
Eco-Index summary: This report seeks to assess and monitor the credibility of global legality verification systems for forestry operations. Tropical Forest Foundation; Tropical Forest Trust; Certisource; Global Forestry Services; SGS Russia; SGS TLTV (Central Africa); and Smartwood are measured against a set of six criteria to measure their credibility. The report provides a summary of each program’s strengths and weaknesses, and finds that the Rainforest Alliance’s Smartwood program is most credible, followed by Tropical Forest Trust, SGS TLTV, Certisource, Tropical Forest Foundation, SGS Russia, and Global Forestry Services. The report continues to provide an overview of programs that review legality as part of a legal or certification program, and recommends that an independent accreditation body be established or identified to verify and monitor the competency of forest certification and the chain-of-custody system.
Author: Jorge Eduardo Rodríguez
Organizations: World Conservation Union (UICN), Programa Ambiental Regional para Centroamérica (PROARCA), and Comisión Centroamericana para el Ambiente y Desarrollo (CCAD)
Language: Spanish
Number of pages: 172
Eco-Index summary: This report, directed by the Central American Forestry Strategy, is based on separate studies carried out in Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. It presents the main global challenges for the implementation of forestry policies in each country. In spite of conservation efforts, deforestation has continued in the region at a rate of 120 acres per hour, amounting to 926,250 to 988,000 acres per year. The report examines the causes of this situation and addresses issues related to forestry in the region, such as protected areas, forest fires, certification, legislation, and environmental policies. Its goal is to obtain the support of policymakers in Central America to promote the forestry agenda and overcome challenges in order to make forest resources a competitive sector in Central American development.
Title: Status of Tropical Forest Management 2005
Organization: International Tropical Timber Organization
Date: 2006
Language: English, Spanish, and French
Number of pages: 36
Eco-Index Summary: A new report by the International Tropical Timber Organization surveyed 814 million hectares of tropical forest in 33 countries in Asia, the Pacific, Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa and found that less than five percent of the world's tropical forests surveyed are under sustainable management. However, there have been significant improvements since 1988; in that time the total area under sustainable management has grown from less than one million hectares to at least 36 million hectares.
The report found that there is a gap between the percentage of forests that are included in sustainable management plans, and the number that are actually being managed sustainably. This gap was evident in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. In addition, of the 461 million hectares of forests that are officially designated as "protected", effective management plans exist for 3.9 percent of those lands, with these plans being implemented in only 2.4 percent of forests. Further, in forests considered to be officially "protected", totaling 461 million hectares, effective management plans only exist for about 3.9 percent, with plans being implemented in just 2.4 percent of forests. The report recommends a global approach to funding the costs of sustainable management, and for governments to set aside land, public or private, to remain under permanent forest cover. Several different approaches have proven effective, including international development aid and international NGOs to help build capacity to enforce existing laws and train local people in sustainable forest management.
Title: Building Markets that Support Forest Conservation: The Ecomadera Project
Organizations: Pinchot Institute for Conservation, USAID, Fundación Jatun Sacha; United States Peace Corps; US Forest Service
Language: English
Number of pages: 45, with Maps, Graphs, and Photos
Eco-Index Summary: This report provides detailed information about the Ecomadera Project's work in various Ecuadorian communities to restore degraded forests and farmlands into productive forests that yield high-quality, sustainable forest products that are sold at a higher price, benefiting local communities and reducing pressure on Ecuador's remaining forests. The report also provides detailed socio-economic background information about Ecuador including statistics about poverty, forest conversion to agricultural lands, current harmful timber harvesting practices, illegally harvested timber, and the problem of low timber prices that leads to increased deforestation.
Title: Municipal Forest Management in Latin America
Editor: Lyès Ferroukhi
Organizations: Center for International Forestry Research, CIFOR; International Development Research Centre, IDRC
Date: 2003
Language: English
Number of pages: 118
Eco-Index Summary: This report examines the recent trend of Latin American governments towards decentralization in the environment and forestry sectors. Centralized control has often been heralded as the most efficient use of resources for conservation. However, increased authority of municipal governments must be recognized as an important factor in forest conservation. This report questions the opposition of national and municipal governments, when their goals are often the same. It focuses on the opportunities and threats of the decentralized forest management model. Local stakeholders, both supporters and critics to conservation, are granted more options in decision making. In a democratic decentralization, locals, such as small farmers and indigenous peoples, are more likely to identify and assign priority to their environmental problems, and acquire greater feelings of "ownership" which in turn fosters conservation. Local people work with the municipal government in planting trees, fighting fires, zoning, managing parks, granting permits and charging fines. This report assesses the power that has been transferred to the local governments and why; the forestry initiatives local governments have taken; and the outcomes of these initiatives. Each chapter is devoted to a case study in a different Latin American country: Bolivia, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Brazil and Costa Rica. The conclusion emphasizes the lessons learned in order to aid in future conservation projects.
Authors: Sara Scherr, Andy White, and David Kaimowitz
Organizations: Forest Trends, Center for International Forestry Research and World Conservation Union-IUCN
Date: July 2004
Language: English
Number of pages: 174, with Tables and Annexes.
Eco-Index Summary: Despite the fact that more than a billion people live in the planet's 19 biodiversity hot spots and a quarter of the forests in developing countries are officially owned or administered by indigenous and other communities, it is large operations that primarily exploit the world's forests. Further, these large forestry operations provide only marginal benefits for rural communities while squandering precious flora and fauna. This study's authors outline ways to improve this inequitable and environmentally dangerous situation, identifying market trends, the barriers that community and small-scale forestry operations face, and opportunities available to these same groups. The study examines successful projects in numerous countries worldwide and those that have been hindered by problems such as national policies that favor large forestry operations or failures to understand market forces. It includes suggestions for policy changes and ways to help rural communities manage their forest resources in ways that improve their living conditions while conserving biodiversity.
© 2001 - Rainforest Alliance