International Institute for Environment and Development 
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Forestry and Land Use Project Summary |
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Theme: Past Projects Project name: Instruments for Sustainable Private Sector Forestry Dates / Duration: 1998-2001
Geographic Region(s): International; focus on South Africa, Brazil, Papua New Guinea, India and China Introduction: Forests provide society with many goods and services. The private sector has come to play an increasingly dominant role in the production and distribution of many forest goods. Often, this has come at a price – environments have been degraded, social inequalities increased. Forest services that benefit society as a whole, notably climate moderation, biodiversity and heritage, are overlooked or undermined because they offer no opportunity for private profit. Securing these forest goods and services has traditionally been a government function. However, limited resources now mean that many governments face the challenge of finding ways to ensure the private sector manages forests such that they optimise benefits to society. Some industry leaders have already taken the initiative and are working towards better forestry. Objectives: This project aims to better understand private sector motivations and to identify effective market and regulatory instruments to ensure that the private sector produces social and environmental benefits from forest management. By considering new instruments within the wider context of policy reform, the project aims to provide practical guidance on how best to ensure that the private sector manages forest resources sustainably. Key findings/progress to date: Key findings/ progress to date: The project centred around collaboration with local, multi-disciplinary teams in five focal countries which were selected following a global review of private sector participation in sustainable forest management. The focal countries were: Brazil, China, India, Papua New Guinea and South Africa. Such collaboration was designed to identify examples of best practice, mechanisms and instruments, to examine ways to improve them and to consider how to apply them. In addition the project addressed three key themes: corporate community partnerships, certification, and markets for environmental services and poverty reduction. The project involved collaboration with IIED staff specialising in environmental economics and in sustainable markets issues, as well as other UK based researchers at the Oxford Forestry Institute and Overseas Development Institute. The project comprised the following: 1. A review of instruments for ensuring sustainability in private sector forestry, and a global review of the extent and nature of private sector participation in forest management. 2. Thematic research on mechanisms and instruments, their impacts, and how to improve them:
Two further thematic studies focused on economic instruments for tropical forests, and in particular on the Congo Basin, and foreign portfolio investment in the forest products sector. 3. Detailed analysis of the context of private sector involvement in forestry in five countries, where private sector involvement was considered both to be high priority and likely to be educative for a wide audience beyond the countries concerned. The countries selected were: In each country a research team was put together, based on a set of criteria developed by IIED for this collaborative research. Each of the research teams comprised a co-ordinator based in a lead local institution and a mixed-experience, multi-disciplinary team of local experts. These teams drew on a wider pool of knowledge and experience in the form of a country advisory group.
In addition to synthesising background or ‘baseline’ information so that the whole story could be told, each of the country studies analysed and developed strategic options within specific themes. Key Publications: The global review, thematic studies and country studies have all been published as books, listed below. Thematic studies on company-community partnerships, certification and audit, and markets for forest environmental services are also available in Spanish, and the company-community partnerships study is available in Portuguese. All studies from the ‘Instruments for Sustainable Private Sector Forestry’ series are aailable free of charge on a CD-ROM. To order a copy please email iied@earthprint.com.
Project supported by: DFID and the European Commission's DGVIII. Contact: James Mayers at IIED: james.mayers@iied.org Copyright © 2005 International Institute for Environment and Development. |
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