Reading Reflections
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Forestry: The Forest Stewardship Council
The Forest Stewardship Council is a non-profit international organization established in 1993. The organization was founded to promote sustainable forestry through proper management of forests in the world. The organization focuses on advancing globally responsible forest management and ensuring that there is adequate integrity, credibility, and transparency in their system. It also works to ensure equitable access to their system’s benefits and create business value for products from the organization’s certified forests. The organization acknowledges that forests that are well managed to their standards bring more benefits both to the local communities and broader communities in the form of clean water and air. It also contributes to the ways of mitigating climate change. Additionally, the Forest Stewardship Council deals with environmental issues like global warming, deforestation, illegal logging, among others, to achieve ecological conservation, alleviation of poverty, and general economic development.
Tollefson et al. (2008) introduce the concept of the Forest Stewardship Council’s standards development process. Chapter 2 explores the organization’s emergence as a transnational organization and considers the various challenges it faces. Therefore, it seeks to secure long-term viability both as an institution and a brand. It also talks about PEFC, ISO, and other sister organizations to the FSC.
The authors acknowledge that the founding of the FSC has been an extraordinary success strategy since “over 100 million hectares of forest land in more than seventy-eight countries are now certified.” (Tollefson et al., 2008, p.4). Also, the distinctive logo for FSC appears on several forest products worldwide. This is following the certification principles set by the FSC to manage general forest management. These principles can only be achieved by observing compliance with the law, well, written forest management plans, implementation, and monitoring of operations that aim to reduce forest damage. It also requires adequate working conditions and good relations with indigenous people.
The PEFC provides criteria for forest management standards, including maintenance and appropriate forest resources enhancement, forest ecosystem health and vitality, and productive functions of forests. It also encompasses the conservation of biological diversity and other socio-economic functions and conditions. The PEFC strongly encourages compliance with legal requirements. The FSC, on the other hand, provides principles such as compliance with the law, the rights of workers, the rights of indigenous people, benefits from the forests, and community relations. It also considers environmental impacts, management planning, monitoring and assessment, high conservation values, and management activities implementation.
The Greenpeace International (2018), as the founding member of FSC, provided a statement on forest certification together with the accurate guidance for consumers and companies concerning the standards. The Greenpeace forest certification scheme champions for transparency as the foundation of responsible and accountable sourcing of products. Among the recommendations included the concept of reducing, reuse, and recycle. This reminds communities and individuals to do a noble practice of reducing the consumption of products and reusing them as many times as possible. It also encourages the use of post-consumer to recycle products that can produce alternative materials for use. “The most environmentally friendly products are those that do not end up in the wastebasket. We need to dramatically reduce our consumption of wood fibre products if we want to protect our last remaining forests. When disposable products are absolutely necessary, they should consist of 100% recycled and/or responsibly produced alternative fibres whenever possible.” (Greenpeace, 2018). The organization adds that when recycled products are not available, the use of paper and Pulp that is FSC 100% is recommended. It encourages finding out where exactly the material comes from and whether it complies with environmental rights standards such as the NDPE commitments. Products that use virgin fiber should be designed in a way that can easily be recycled.
The scheme also recommended reclaimed wood for timber products. It claims that if repurposed is not an option, the FSC 100 percent brand is the best option. The consumers who mostly buy large volumes of materials should dig deeper, if possible, to avoid the chances of purchasing timber from questionable sources. Large quantity buyers should always collect information on the source location and the specific species used and operate responsibly by opting for local and regional sources. The organization also cautions the consumers that the mixed labeled products do not comply with Forest Standards Council forest management’s expected principles. Therefore, they should avoid them at all costs.
Greenpeace (2018) also provided several regulations to large volume buyers of pulp paper and timber. First of all, the organization encourages the large volume of buyers of forest products to minimize or reduce fiber from virgin forests. “We continue to promote 100% post-consumer recycled forest products and responsibly produced alternative fibres as the most sustainable options and the best indicators of environmental performance.” (Greenpeace, 2018). It adds that FSC 100 percent certification for forest management is the recommended option where fiber or virgin wood is categorically necessary. The buyers should consider where the product comes from, and for diligence purposes, they are expected to ensure that the source meets the company policy requirements that include NDPE. This applies especially to the areas characterized by high risks of compliance and those known for heightened corruption. Finally, the Greenpeace organization cautions the buyers against using the product with FSC-Mix, including labels of controlled wood, since it may contain wood from unacceptable sources. These sources are usually certified for the criteria for forest management or forest stewardship council principles.
Rural livelihoods, Agro Diversity, and Food Security: The Future of Smallholder Farming
Global food security and general agriculture have more importance on today’s international development agenda, more than any other past era. There is a significant growing concern from farmer’s organizations, agribusiness, governments, and civil society organizations to develop new strategies following their interesting visions. Mainly for the production sectors, value chains, and also human rights perspectives.
Murphy tried to bring to light the problem of food security due to lack of appropriate agricultural policies, especially for the small scale farmers. The small scale farmers face many challenges with the global markets and international distribution system (Murphy, 2018). Access to food is another primary concern of food security that arises from issues of supply and distribution. However, the emergence of processed foods, supermarkets, and fast-food chains has eased the way food is now processed, stored, and distributed in most areas of the world. Several countries have adopted globalization as part of their system to improve food security. A perfect example of this is Rwanda.
Rwanda embarks on a policy package to professionalize and modernize the Agrarian land sector for the sole purpose of sustainable food production hence food security. For the last few years, Rwanda has been hailed as a developmental miracle (Ansoms et al., 2018), particularly because of the high economic growth level. Surprisingly, its economic base remains subsistence farming. Ansoms et al. (2018) show that more than seventy percent of the food they eat comes from their local productions. However, the government of Rwanda came up with the policy program that would turn Rwanda from a subsistent farmer country into a developed and modern country. The strategy included formalizing land tenure, using current inputs to promote and intensify the production of particular marketable crops. Rwanda has experienced a consistent period of high economic growth since introducing the policies that helped reshape the agricultural sector. This improved economy emphasizes the importance of a developmental vision that is clearly articulated.
The Authors features Rwanda as a model for agricultural modernization to ensure the security of land rights through the system of formal land registration, as a way of agricultural investment. This act allows the government to have a precise control and view of land rights. Rwanda’s government assumed land registration and sharing arrangements by implementing official titling and registration that enhanced land tenure security. However, this land registration process led to an increase in land conflict (Ansoms et al., 2018). This heightened in areas where there was the previous reshuffling due to the return of refugees. These conflicts have continued to the present day Rwanda, even for the parcels that have already been registered. As a result of this, people do not often report recorded land transactions for fear of the rise of new land issues.
The crop intensification policy was the art of the Rwandan agricultural reform. The program focuses on the consolidation of land, provision of proximity extension services, sale of fertilizers and improved seeds, and improvement of post handling and storage of productions. For the land consolidation strategy, farmers who cultivate land adjacent to each other are encouraged to use one cultivation regime and choose one type of crop. In contrast, those who grow under CIP are encouraged to do crops prioritized by the government. The country also launched the revival of the cooperative movement that enabled farmers to benefit from economies of scale in production schemes. Cooperatives play a significant role in increased agricultural output by facilitating commercialization and increasing modernized production. Additionally, it is the source of information to the farmers about loans and other benefits.
The authors also highlighted the role of local authorities in modern agriculture. The Rwandan government has been able to mobilize the resources available in the country and its population for the aim of developing the country’s economy. This has been achieved through a decentralized system of administration, which is organized from top to bottom. The top is the provinces, followed by districts, then sectors, cells, and at the bottom is imidugudu (Ansoms, 2012). The local authorities are also responsible, for policy implementation to higher authority levels hence the limited possibility of error correction and policy learning.
Therefore, the land sector and agricultural modernization should be treated as a developmental project that aims to co-opt farmers into a state-managed system and characterized by commercialization dependence on state services. Through such dependence, the state can actively consolidate and enforce its power. Any country is encouraged to adopt these land policies for better agricultural production and improved economic development.
Open Question
Does forest certification work?
Formality vs. Informality. In the fight for economic development and food security, exactly do small-scale producers fit this contribution?
What are the direct impacts of agricultural globalization on a country’s economy?