ABSTRACT
Kristiina A. Vogt, Bruce C. Larson, Daniel J. Vogt, John C. Gordon, Anna Fanzeres, Jennifer L. O’Hara, Peter A. Palmiotto
Despite the existence of laws governing forestlands, management of forest ecosystems is far from adequate. Certification of forestlands and forest products has been proposed as a means to improve management of these resources. Since its inception in the late 1980s, certification has become a central focus of forest management. It is also being considered by national and international agencies as a solution to many other environmental problems (e.g., global warming and carbon sequestration in forests; Apps and Kurz 1991, NRC 1998), and for achieving the goals of sustainable development (see 2.1, 2.2). Because it is in the early stages of development, the science behind forest certification has not been evaluated in order to determine whether forests are being assessed for the many benefits they provide. It is critical at this time to examine the strengths and weaknesses of certification approaches to ensure that the “emperor without clothes” analogy does not come back to haunt a very useful tool that can promote sustainable forest management. The human values integral to certification assessments must be recognized, and the consequences of focusing exclusively on them must be made transparent. If these values are not recognized, there is a strong likelihood that forest certification protocols will be ineffective in assessing the long-term maintenance of forest ecosystems.
