Equity and FSC. Issues for debate from a case study in Brazil. Dr. Luís Fernando Guedes Pinto - IMAFLORA Dr. Constance L.

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1 Equity and FSC Issues for debate from a case study in Brazil Dr. Luís Fernando Guedes Pinto - IMAFLORA Dr. Constance L. McDermott - OCTF

2 Equity and FSC Issues for debate from a case study in Brazil Luís Fernando Guedes Pinto - IMAFLORA Constance L. McDermott - OCTF Adapted from a science paper published in the Forest Policy and Economics Journal. For more information, please read the full article at: Pinto, LFG, McDermott. C. (2013). Equity and forest certification A case study in Brazil. Forest Policy and Economics. Available online 23 April 2013, ISSN , /j.forpol (

3 Initiative: Institute for Forest and Agricultural Management and Certification (Instituto de Manejo e Certificação Florestal e Agrícola - Imaflora) Authors: Luís Fernando Guedes Pinto and Constance L. McDermott Graphic design: Ozonio Propaganda This license is not valid for photographs and illustrations; their copyrights remain property of Imaflora. You may: Copy, distribute, show to third parties and use this work to carry out the activities described in it; Use its contents in other publications. Photographs: Imaflora s portfolio* *The pictures used in this publication are part of Imaflora s portfolio; their objective is to illustrate processes and promote communities. Cataloging record: Under the following conditions: Source: you must acknowledge the original author according to the recommendations specified by the author or by the copyright holder. Non commercial use: you cannot use this work for commercial purposes. Sharing the same license: if you modify or adapt this publication or use it to create another, you can only distribute the final work under a license agreement identical to this one. Equity and FSC issues for debate from a case study in Brazil / Luís Fernando Guedes Pinto and Constance L. McDermott - Piracicaba, SP: Imaflora, p. ISBN: Certification. 2. Brazil - Forest. 3. Socioenvironmental. 4. Amazônia. 5. FSC. I. Title. In order to provide easier access to all individuals and organizations interested in our publications, we have transferred our copyrights to Creative Commons (www. creativecommons.org.br). This means that reproduction of the contents of Imaflora s publications can be done free of charge if the following criteria are met: i) non commercial purposes; ii) acknowledgment of each source and author, and iii) whenever Imaflora s content is used in another publication, such publication must also be licensed with Creative Commons. Imaflora (Instituto de Manejo e Certificação Florestal e Agrícola) is a Brazilian nonprofit organization established in 1995 with the aim of promoting the conservation and sustainable use of natural resources and generating social benefits in the forestry and agriculture sector. Board of Directors: Adalberto Veríssimo André Villas-Bôas Célia Cruz Maria Zulmira de Souza Sérgio A. P. Esteves Tasso Rezende de Azevedo Ricardo Abramovay Advisory Board: Marcelo Paixão Marilena Lazzarini Mário Mantovani Fábio Albuquerque Rubens Ramos Mendonça Audit Committee: Adauto Tadeu Basílio Erika Bechara Rubens Mazon Executive Secretariat: Maurício Voivodic Eduardo Trevisan Gonçalves Communications: Priscila Mantelatto Jaqueline Lourenço Beatriz Borghesi Fátima Nunes Estrada Chico Mendes, 185 Cep: Piracicaba - SP - Brasil Tel/Fax: (19) imaflora@imaflora.org

4 Background and Purpose Equity is a core goal of the FSC system and is embedded in its governance structures and policies at many levels, including its mission statement and present global strategy, its voting structures and its certification standards. However, there is debate whether market instruments such as certification and payments for environmental services will improve equity or favor largescale market actors at the expense of local or marginalized groups. This policy paper aims to share with FSC members the results of a research jointly conducted by IMAFLORA (FSC member) and a Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Tropical Forests about equity in the FSC system. The purpose is to examine the FSC s goals for equity and to propose recommendations for enhancing equity given these goals.

5 An approach for Equity We assume Equity is a socially constructed concept rooted in notions of fairness. It encompasses justice and equality, but people vary in their perceptions of what is just and what should be equal (e.g. equality of opportunity or equality of benefits). Equity can also encompass the larger social context recognizing that different stakeholders have different capacities and access to resources. In this sense, while Justice is blind, Equity has her eyes wide open. 1 We analysed FSC governance, policies and standards; its outcomes in regards to the distribution of certificates; as well as the fit of FSC goals with the expectations of local Brazilian stakeholders affected by certified operations. The latter analysis was based on stakeholder comments recorded in the public summaries of different types of forest operations certified in Brazil (natural forests and plantations). All data were collected in September We conducted a comprehensive assessment of the various dimensions of equity across multiple scales of the FSC system, with the local analysis rooted in a study case of Brazil. For this purpose we used an analytical framework that describes four parameters of equity: the goals relating to equity (why of equity), the target and scale of equity (who of equity), its content (what of equity, organized in distributive, procedural and contextual dimensions) and the process of setting these parameters (how of equity). 2 How are the benchmarks of equity set? Goal: why equity? Scale: who counts? DISTRIBUTIVE Content: WHAT COUNTS AS EQUITY? PROCEDURAL CONTEXTUAL 1. McDermott, M., Mahanty, S., Schreckenberg, K., Examining equity: A multidimensional framework for assessing equity in payments for ecosystem services. Environmental Science and Policy This framework was created by McDermott et al as cited above.

6 Findings FSC s equity goals include a balanced participation of the North and South and equal representation across chambers of economic, social and environmental interest groups. FSC also aims for certification to be equally accessible to different forest producer types, from large and private companies to small forest owners, community or low intensity managed forests of the tropics. It aims to benefit people affected by forests over the long term and to distribute the benefits from FSC certification across forest supply chains. There is an unequal number of members per chamber in FSC international, with the largest number in the economic chamber, followed by the environmental and the social. This inequality is reinforced by the greater number of organizational members in the economic chamber. In any chamber, the vote of an organization weights 10 times the vote of an individual member. The same pattern occurs for north and south membership. Although 54% of total members are from the global South, they only represent 37% of the voting power, due to the low membership of Southern organizations. The participation of Brazilians in the international membership of FSC is unevenly distributed across chambers, with strong dominance of the economic chamber. The Brazilian National initiative also has stronger presence of economic members, but it has facilitated access to small and medium companies and attenuated the asymmetries of the international membership among chambers. Only one company counts for 11 votes in FSC Brazil and international, since its subsidiaries are registered as independent members. The same occurs in the international membership for international NGOs with affiliate organizations registered in different countries. Implementation of FSC is asymmetric in Brazil across the national forest sector. Plantations represent the majority of the area (57%) and number of certificates (79%), and private firms account for an even higher majority in regard to producer profile (90% of certificates and 75% of the area). Community and indigenous operations, in contrast, represent only 10% of the projects and 25% of the certified area. Around half of Brazilian plantations (53% of ha) are already certified while FSC natural and community forest operations represent less than 5% of natural forests managed in the country. Despite the relatively low participation of certified communities and indigenous operations, their presence in Brazil is higher than in many other countries. This outcome was supported by intensive external efforts to overcome contextual barriers of capacity, compliance with formal requirements, social organization, markets, quality and quantity of production, costs on investments and audits. Public and corporate policies, NGOs and donors and one certification body had a critical role in the achievement and maintenance of certification by these groups.

7 There is a concentration of forest management certificates issued in Brazil by one certification body (64% of total FM certificates). This is a not-for profit CB, operating in partnership with a national not-for-profit organization acting as an inspection body (IB). This CB-IB is responsible for 100% of the communities-indigenous certificates of the country. The IB has additional mechanisms beyond those of the FSC to increase accessibility for smalls-scale and community producers, such as a social fund to subsidize audits. FSC P&C emphasize contextual and procedural dimensions of equity with less emphasis on the distribution of material benefits. From the four explicit social Principles (from 1 to 4), 11 criteria (61%) emphasize contextual, 5 criteria (28%) emphasize procedural and 2 (11%) deal with distributive aspects of forest management. The procedural and contextual issues covered by the FSC P&C and other FSC policies include transparency, participation, accessibility to the system, guarantee of rights, compliance with regulations and mechanisms for consultation and dialogue between certified operations and groups impacted by them. While FSC P&C emphasize contextual and procedural issues, stakeholders affected by operations certified have expectations that FSC certification should result in the distribution of material benefits. More than half of stakeholder comments listed in public summaries deal with distributive aspects related to poverty alleviation and local development.

8 Issues for discussion and recommendations for FSC Foster membership of marginalized groups in all FSC chambers small and medium enterprises in the economic chamber, southern social and environmental NGOs, labor unions and representatives of communities and indigenous groups. Given the FSC s goals for North/South equality, there is room for improvement of the south-north balance of votes. If not by chamber, at least by whole membership. Maintain the process of integrating membership of National Initiatives with FSC International. Investigate how the current voting structure that awards organizations 10 times the voting power of individuals is affecting the relative ability of different types of stakeholders to participate equally in FSC decision-making. Investigate how the membership of companies and their subsidiaries and NGOs and their affiliates impact the balance of decision-making inside FSC. Prioritize resources for partnerships to build capacity for the pre-certification of disadvantaged groups, such as communities and indigenous groups. Engage with governments to develop public policies that foster certification for local groups Investigate if the profile of Certification Bodies (profit x not-for profit and local x international) influences the implementation of FSC in a country, accessibility, the quality of audits and the performance of certified operations. Redesign FSC accreditation processes to facilitate access for local and not for profit certification bodies with missions aligned with FSC s. Encourage certifiers to innovate as social entrepreneurs dedicated to operationalizing the FSC mission. Enhance accessibility tools for disadvantaged groups, both through present FSC policies and by creating new policies. SLIMF and group certification are important, but not enough to achieve FSC s own equity goals. The Smallholder certification fund is an important step forward. Maintain and enhance current efforts to differentiate community and indigenous products in the market place. Prioritize market development of Non timber forest products in international and national markets Revise FSC policies and standards to better respond to local priorities for the distribution of material benefits among local communities impacted by FSC activities.

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10 About the authors: About Imaflora Luís Fernando Guedes Pinto has collaborated with IMAFLORA since 1996 and presently works as its Agriculture Certification Manager. He has acted as IMAFLORA s Executive Director from 2005 to 2010, while he represented the organization at the FSC General Assembly, served as a Board member of the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) and represented the SAN and Rainforest Alliance at the Board of Directors of ISEAL Alliance. In 2011 he was a visitor researcher at OCTF. The Instituto de Manejo e Certificação Florestal e Agrícola is a Brazilian NGO founded in 1995 with the mission of encouraging and promoting changes in forestry and agriculture, to promote the conservation and sustainable use of natural resources and the generation of social benefits. It is a member of the FSC and also an inspection body of the system, working in partnership with the Rainforest Alliance. For more information,visit: luisfernando@imaflora.org Constance McDermott is a James Martin Senior Fellow in Forest Governance at the University of Oxford and the Oxford Centre for Tropical Forests (OCTF). Over the past twenty-five years she has conducted research and applied work on local, state and marketbased approaches to forest governance, including community forestry, forest certification, FLEGT, comparative public forest policy, intergovernmental forest and climate negotiations and REDD+. This includes fieldwork in North America, Asia and Latin America as well as global and regional comparative studies covering over 65 tropical, temperate and boreal forest zones. constance.mcdermott@ouce.ox.ac.uk About OCTF The Oxford Centre for Tropical Forests (OCTF) is a network of Oxford University departments and neighbouring NGOs, consultancies and businesses in the Oxford area. It facilitates collaborative research and communication among its members on issues related to forest governance, management and conservation, and also serves as a platform for broader collaboration between Oxford area institutions and the global forest community. OCTF is a member of the Oxford Martin School, an interdisciplinary research initiative at Oxford University tackling the challenges of the 21st century. For further information, please see:

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