Working towards boosting certification of

tropical forests in Africa

25 NOVEMBER 2020 NEWS

Forest certification evolved from concerns about the destruction of tropical forests. Yet
after more than two decades of combined efforts by PEFC and FSC, less than a tenth of
the global certified forest area is tropical forest. It is time for a new boost for forest
certification of tropical forests, and PEFC - together with a diverse coalition of
stakeholders - is making great strides towards this goal.

The loss of tropical forests was high on the agenda of the 1992 Earth Summit,
but governments failed to agree on a legally binding agreement on this topic.
Yet it gave raise to something potentially more important: the insight that
deforestation cannot be tackled in isolation, but needs to be part of a holistic,
global effort to promote sustainable forest management (SFM). 

As a result, the concept of “criteria and indicators for Sustainable Forest

Management” became more widely accepted internationally, and eventually
led to Pan-European criteria and indicators for SFM (MCPFE) and criteria for
the sustainable management of tropical forests (ATO/ITTO). 

Forest certification systems also trace their roots back to the 1992 Earth
Summit and its concerns for tropical forests. However, certification took hold
mainly in temperate forests, especially after PEFC was created. By 2005, six
years after its foundation, PEFC was already the world’s largest forest
certification system. 

Temperate forests were located in regions where forest governance systems

were well established, forest rights largely well defined, and where forest
owners already benefitted from a long history of sustainable forest
management. Importantly, forest owners were also well organised within an
established network of forest sector organisations and networks.  

PEFC, which quires a “bottom-up” approach in every country where it

operates, builds on such structures. PEFC sustainable forest management
requirements are developed by a multi-stakeholder process, which seeks for a
consensus among all actors at national level, to address the particular
framework conditions of the respective country.  

PEFC’s bottom-up approach therefore always requires participation of

affected and interested stakeholders at local level. In counties with less
established governance structures, this is more difficult to put in place, but
more successful and long-lasting than top-down approaches. Nowadays,
about 75% of all certified forests are PEFC certified. 

The first tropical country that achieved PEFC endorsement was Malaysia in
2009. Today, Brazil, Indonesia, French Guiana, Gabon and Cameroon all
benefit from PEFC-endorsed national forest certification systems, with efforts
underway in Ghana, Guyana, Myanmar and the Republic of Congo.

But more efforts are required to expand sustainable forest management of

tropical forests, which is why Cameroon, Congo and Gabon have joined
forces to form ‘PAFC Congo Basin’. The Democratic Republic of Congo and
the Central African Republic are hoped to join this collaboration as well. The
shared language, the same forest type and similar forest legislation in the
neighbouring countries, make this unprecedented development of a regional
system feasible. 

The future regional system would substitute the existing national systems,
while expanding the availability of PEFC certification to all participating
countries. Led by ATIBT and supported by Olam International, the project has
received funding from PPECF (Programme de Promotion de l’Exploitation
Certifiée des Forêts), a joint programme of KFW, the German

Development Bank, and COMIFAC, the Commission of Forestry Ministers of

Central Africa. 

The management of the system will be centralized and administered by a

single regional coordinator, increasing the efficiency of the system’s
implementation and facilitating external communication and outreach.  

Crucially, the support of local stakeholders for this regional approach will
enable PAFC Congo Basin to obtain widespread support and buy-in, giving
forest certification of tropical forests in Africa a much needed boost. We invite
all stakeholders to join this collaborative effort.