Open Knowledge (FSC OK)

FPIC is increasingly seen as an appropriate tool for managing the relationship between indigenous peoples and companies wishing to exploit natural resources on the land where they live. This report is the first to consider the applicability of FPIC within the context of industrial forestry exploitation in the Congo Basin. It presents FPIC as a process to guide forestry management so as to ensure open, ongoing and equitable relationships between forest peoples and forestry companies. Such relationships are the basis for making long-term socio-economic development a consequence of forestry operations. The FPIC approach requires, above all, that forest people are aware of the issues surrounding industrial forest exploitation so that they can make informed decisions about their role in forest management. This reduces negative impacts, enhances positive ones and ensures equitable sharing of benefits. The report shows how this approach is advantageous to both forest populations and forestry companies implementing it. In impact assessment studies, the main interest is focused on the identification of the consequences of one particular treatment on one or more variables that were affected by such treatment (PRENNUSHI et al., 2000; RAVALLION, 2003; RAVALLION, 2006). In the present case of assessing the impact of socioenvironmental certification on community forest management in the State of Acre for wood production, the treatment consisted of socioenvironmental certification and the certified community forest producers were the beneficiaries. The control sample (paired) for this experiment was a group of community producers that had a profile similar to that of the beneficiaries and also practiced forest management, but who were not certified producers. The differences between the group receiving treatment (certified community producers) and the control group (non certified community producers) were attributed to the treatment (certification). The main output variables analyzed were: environmental preservation, quality of the administration of the association, use of Personal Protection Equipment (PPI), and income from wood sales. Two aspects of fundamental importance in ensuring the quality and the assumptions of this impact assessment were: i) similarity of the community forest operations, and ii) the existence of similar non certified community forest operations. Four criteria were considered in determining similarity among forest community operations: i) use of community forest management practices; ii) logging for wood production as the main forest management activity; iii) land rights/ownership situation as Agroextractive Settlement Project, and iv) forest management carried out according to the FSC Management Standard for Highland Natural Forests of the Brazilian Amazon Region.