• Positive policy factors
• Moves towards sustainable forest management
• National Level initiatives
• Social trends and ethical consumers

There are a number of policy initiatives that provide a positive policy environment for the development of ethical trade. In the forest sector this includes international and national efforts to develop criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management. Many initiatives have emerged in the wake of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio in 1992.

Edition 2 of the Ethical Trade in Forest Products and the Policy Environment Watching Brief will explore these policy initiatives in more detail.

Intergovernmental Panel on Forests / Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF /IPF)
The IFF set up by UN General Assembly in August 1997 to continue discussion of the IPF (Intergovernmental Panel on Forests). The IPF (an intergovernmental, ad hoc panel) was established by the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) as a result of its 1995 review of Agenda 21's Chapter 11. Its objective was to discuss whether to launch work towards a legally binding instrument on forests (following on from UNCED). The IFF will report to the Commission on Sustainable Development in 2000.

Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)

The Forest Stewardship Council is an international non-profit organisation founded in 1993 to support environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable management of the world's forests. It is an association of Members consisting of a diverse group of representatives from environmental and social groups, the timber trade and the forestry profession, indigenous people's organisations, community forestry groups and forest product certification organisations from around the world.

Its head office is in Oaxaca, Mexico.
http://www.fscoax.org/

More on certification ......

National Level Initiatives

Some national level organisations have begun to develop systems for forest certification. These include:

LEI
From 1993, the Indonesia Ecolabel Working Group (Lembaga Ekolabel Indonesia) has been developing a certification system for Indonesian forest products. LEI is working closely with FSC.

Canada
The Canadian Standards Association (CSA) is a not-for-profit, independent standards writing organization. It initiated a Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) Project in June 1994. It is funded and supported by the Canadian forest industry. The system is based on the ISO environmental management systems standard (ISO 14000).

http://www.sfms.com/standar.htm

UK
The UK Woodland Assurance Scheme (UKWAS) is a voluntary scheme for the independent assessment of forest management in the UK. Forest and environmental organisations were involved in the development of the scheme, partly as a response to the growing consumer demand for timber products from sustainably managed forests.

It has been designed to operate in association with credible international certification schemes such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/UKWAS/ukwas.html

More detail on certification and access to schemes can be found on the comprehensive Certification Information Service site, currently hosted by the European Forest Institute.

http://www.efi.fi/cis/english/intro.html

Ethical trade in the forest sector has developed largely as a result of consumer demand for products from forests that are managed in a sustainable fashion. Earlier in the decade the main consumer response to forest issues such as rapid deforestation was to boycott tropical timber. However this has evolved with the development of ethical trade in products from well managed forests. The growth of ethical and green consumerism has been orchestrated and channelled by many environmental NGOs to add legitimacy to their campaigns for sustainable forest management.