Manuel R. Guariguata

Neil Bird

Omar R. Masera

Francis X. Johnson

Graham von Maltitz

Patricia Tella

René Martínez-Bravo

With the rapid growth of biofuel production and consumption and the proliferation of policy decisions supporting this expansion, concerns about the biofuel sectors environmental and social impacts are increasing. Consequently, a range of actors  among them governments, multilateral institutions, nongovernmental organisations and multistakeholder industry groups  have created sustainability frameworks, some mandatory, others voluntary. This report examines how the most developed sustainability frameworks for feedstock production (including biofuels) address key environmental issues. It identifies critical gaps in these frameworks and proposes areas for improvement. The main finding is that the frameworks share broad sustainability principles yet they differ greatly in terms of their comprehensiveness and how they apply specific indicators for environmental issues, particularly with respect to land use change (both direct and indirect), allocation of degraded land for feedstock cultivation, and related accounting of greenhouse gas emissions. In the absence of sufficient hard data with which to gauge the effectiveness of existing sustainability frameworks, the report notes that the standards of these frameworks are not sufficient to mitigate the effects of direct and indirect land use change and promote environmental conservation. A key recommendation is that such standards should be complemented by other policy instruments. Furthermore, as sustainability frameworks are only a means to an end, they must be supported by practical guidance, effective interpretation of standards, principles and criteria, and development of verifiable indicators, along with the provision of appropriate tools, approaches and capacity building activities.

A review of environmental issues in the context of biofuel sustainability frameworks

Science, People, and Policy : Proceedings of a Conference Held at CATIE, Costa Rica, November 10-12, 1997

Ecology and Management of Tropical Secondary Forest

Peter Cronkleton

Douglas Sheil

Robert Nasi

Carmen García-Fernández

Cristina Herrero-Jáuregui

Ousseynou Ndoye

Verina Ingram

Hacia un manejo múltiple en bosques tropicales : Consideraciones sobre la compatibilidad del manejo de madera y productos forestales no maderables

Erin O. Sills

Claudia Romero

Francis E. Putz

Guilherme R. Lima

Luciana Papp

Maureen Voigtlaender

Edson Vidal

Management decisions on appropriate practices and policies regarding tropical forests often need to be made in spite of innumerable uncertainties and complexities. Among the uncertainties are the lack of formalization of lessons learned regarding the impacts of previous programs and projects. Beyond the challenges of generating the proper information on these impacts, there are other difficulties that relate with how to socialize the information and knowledge gained so that change is transformational and enduring. The main complexities lie in understanding the interactions of social-ecological systems at different scales and how they varied through time in response to policy and other processes. This volume is part of a broad research effort to develop an independent evaluation of certification impacts with stakeholder input, which focuses on FSC certification of natural tropical forests. More specifically, the evaluation program aims at building the evidence base of the empirical biophysical, social, economic, and policy effects that FSC certification of natural forest has had in Brazil as well as in other tropical countries. The contents of this volume highlight the opportunities and constraints that those responsible for managing natural forests for timber production have experienced in their efforts to improve their practices in Brazil. As such, the goal of the studies in this volume is to serve as the foundation to design an impact evaluation framework of the impacts of FSC certification of natural forests in a participatory manner with interested parties, from institutions and organizations, to communities and individuals.

The context of natural forest management and FSC certification in Brazil

Manuel R. Guariguata

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