FSC reflected in scientific and professional literature

Forest Stewardship Council
achievement was then marked by a celebration. After that the company was able to channel
its relations with villages into an on-going transaction of information and material items
based on timber production in their forest areas. This outcome can be put down to a combination
of sound research, continual dialogue over many years, and a constant effort on
the part of the company to improve their practice. (…) To summarize, any sustainable notion
of consent has to be rigid enough to stand as legal proof of an agreement but flexible
enough to contain means of redress.” 203
The recommendations of the authors for steps to be taken by forest companies to achieve
FPIC are listed in the Annex I.
Constructive negotiations based on guarantees
Robert Nasi et al. (2007) 204 elaborated that the hunting of terrestrial wildlife for food
(mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians) poses a threat to the survival of many tropical
forest species and ecosystems, and that this “bushmeat crisis” is also is also a food security
crisis for many forest-dependent people. The solution to the bushmeat crisis is a more secure
rights regime: if local people are guaranteed the benefits of sustainable land use and hunting
practices, they will be willing to invest in sound management and negotiate selective hunting
regimes. On page 12 the authors mention
"In logging concessions surrounding Nouabalé Ndoki National Park, northern Republic of
Congo, a successful collaboration has been established between the Government, an
NGO (Wildlife Conservation Society, WCS), the private sector (Congolaise Industrielle des
Bois, CIB), and local communities."
This CIB concession is one of the today’s (June 2008) two FSC certified CIB concessions in
Republic of Congo. Some years ago it seemed to be almost impossible for the concessions in
the region to fulfill all FSC requirements, despite being committed to improving their forest
management since decades. However, over the years the recognition of the importance of
certification in the marketplace convinced the concession holders to go for certification to differentiate
from other less committed companies. Now that it has been proven possible, the
203 Freeman, Lewis, et al. (2007) ibid.
204 Nasi, Robert; Brown, D.; Wilkie, D.; Bennett, E.; Tutin, C.; van Tol, G.; Christophersen, T. (2007): Conservation
and Use of Wildlife-Based Resources: The Bushmeat Crisis. Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity,
Montreal, and Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Bogor. Technical Series no. 33, 50 pages.
http://www.cbd.int/doc/publications/cbd-ts-33-en.pdf (as of July 2008)
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