Linking forest management and fair trade certification; Standards Comparison & Market Analysis for Dual Certified Forest Products

Since almost a quarter of the global forest area is owned or managed by communities, especially in the Southern countries, increasing the access to certification for communities and small-medium forest enterprises should be a priority in the international agenda. Recent researches and initiatives suggest the chance to link FSC certification with Fair Trade (FT) principles to differentiate community forest products on the market in order to bring more benefits to forest dependent people. Hence, the present study aims to give a practical contribution to improve the knowledge around the possible links between FSC and FT certification. Particularly, the main goal is to investigate whether and how the link between FSC and FT certification systems might work as a market based tool to promote and distinguish community forest products. In doing so, the study explores which are the more viable scenarios and standards integration processes that may be used to obtain FT (with a special attention to Sustainable Fair Trade Management System (SFTMS) of the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO)) and FSC Dual Certified Forest Products