The role of standards-based approaches in community forestry development: findings from two case studies in southeast Asia

This study analyses the effects on local forest management capacities of two community-oriented Standards-based approaches (SBAs). SBAs include certification, criteria and indicators (C&I), and any other instrument based on agreed benchmarks for monitoring and assessing forest management.The two approaches analysed in this study are:Certification of village forestry associations in Lao PDR: certification is a market oriented approach, based on third-party verification of C&I that are external to the management unit, but which have been interpreted and applied internallyEnvironmental performance monitoring (EPM) of community-based forest management in the Philippines: EPM is a management-oriented approach, based on first-party verification of C&I that are partly internal, and partly external, to the management unit in questionCharacteristics of EPM:community is principal stakeholder and joint monitoring partners are under community leadership major cost of an EPM is forming a community monitoring team, additionally there are recurring costs of monitoring, and preparing and communicating resultspotential financial benefits are less than certification because EPM has no commercial application use of monitoring results to review management practices can lead to greater technical and administrative efficienciesmain enabling condition is understanding and appreciation of C&I and monitoring within the community other conditions include availability of community members to carry out monitoring; and access to training and technical assistance for monitoring; and some level of trust between stakeholders is needed for joint monitoring to proceed.Characteristics of Certification:villages co-managing production forests are only one and so far rather minor stakeholderresponsibility for financing and implementing certification is almost entirely in the hands of donorscosts and benefits are distorted by donor subsidies; direct costs (of assessment) are estimated at US$40,000 and indirect costs are estimated at US$16.50/m3 like EPM, certification can lead to technical and administrative efficiencies from the process of compliance or from monitoring and evaluation by certifiers access to capital, information and markets need to be ensured, as well as practical requirements, e.g. ability to pay for certification services, and to communicate with certifierEven though EPM has failed to establish a strong role in the Phillipines, as demonstrated by the case study, EPM deserves to play a much greater role in community forestry in the Philippines because EPM can reflect local needs and capacities quite faithfully. The future development of village forest certification is likely to be driven not so much by economic, as by legal and institutional, concerns. It is possible that a future initiative to develop a formal certification standard for Lao will pay more attention to village needs and capacities when setting performance requirements.