ABSTRACT
Forest management certification from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has been developed to promote socially beneficial, environmentally appropriate and economically viable forest management. As deforestation and biodiversity loss are globally persisting, evidence for impacts from certification are increasingly desired. This chapter provides an overview of research approaches and findings on impacts of FSC certification for biodiversity conservation. A first category of research papers assesses operational-level outcomes associated with FSC Standard compliance. They define areas of improvement and the baseline of impacts. A second category of papers provides field-measured variables associated with FSC certification and try to isolate the specific effect of FSC. The majority of impact research is conducted in tropical forests and evidence for impacts in temperate and boreal forests is strongly lacking. While most research on plant and animal diversity provides evidence of reduced negative impacts of FSC, findings on deforestation and forest degradation do not seem to reach a consensus. Notably, current research rarely has robust study design, limiting an ability to attribute effects to FSC certification with confidence. Therefore, while a number of case studies support that FSC provides relative environmental benefits, drawing a general conclusion about FSC globally is still difficult. We highlight some areas of improvement for impact evaluation. Finally, we present the potential for FSC to provide benefits for biodiversity conservation in Intact Forest Landscapes.
