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| NTFP Certification, Challenges and Opportunities |
| | Patrick Mallet, Falls Brook Center
The harvest of non-timber forest products has recently drawn the attention of a range of certification programs.
• The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) (www.fscoax.org) promotes well-managed forests through the application of criteria that address ecological, social and economic issues.
• The International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) (www.ifoam.org) is the world body for organic agriculture and has criteria for wild-harvested products as well as specific criteria for some NTFPs like maple syrup and honey.
• Fairtrade Labelling Organizations (FLO) International (www.fairtrade.net ), places an emphasis on the social components of production, ensuring the well-being of the producer, and has
criteria for a number of agroforestry roductsr.
The ultimate goal of these systems is to develop certification programs that are more holistic and support sustainable management. This makes collaboration between them increasingly important.
Certification itself is an evolving tool and certification specific to NTFPs is very recent and largely untested, and many of the principles
and processes by which these products get certified are still being worked out. One example of this is the current work of the FSC NTFP Working Group to define a consistent approach for certifiers in
the assessment of NTFPs. Through trial certification assessments of specific NTFPs, a body of knowledge has developed on which to base policy formulation.
NTFP certification faces some special challenges, including:
• A lack of ecological knowledge about individual species including baseline data, sustainable harvesting levels and resilience;
• Impact on small producers and subsistence users including defining tenure and access rights, high fixed costs and the impact of increased demand on subsistence use;
• Market demands including the quality of the product, limited market size and uncompetitive prices versus alternatives; and
• Inexperience in certification including lack of certifiers with NTFP experience, lack of standard policies and difficulties integrating timber and non-timber products.
Field trials indicate that certification is most applicable when it is seen as an addition to timber certification or where there is a large-scale
operation in existence. Certification is also useful where there is an international market or large national market but is not often required to satisfy the needs of a local market.
Most of the work to date on NTFP certification has been in tropical countries. There are very few examples of largescale NTFP certification in Boreal countries apart from organic wild berry harvesting in Scandanavia (see box below). A key constraint in
Canada has been the lack of adequate tenure arrangements for NTFP harvest on crown land. This has limited the scope of NTFP harvesting and, in some cases, pushed the industry underground.
A proven market for certified NTFPs has yet to be developed but this is changing slowly with the emergence of community-based products that sell a locally sustainable message and that target similar
markets to those of certified products. It will take further refinement of certification programs to meet
local realities, more producers and harvesters willing to test the certification market, and increased demand by consumers for certified
products before the full benefits of NTFP certification are felt.
Falls Brook Centre runs an international Certification and Marketing program that aims to
make certification more accessible to local producers in Canada and Latin America.
Contact:
Patrick Mallet, Falls Brook Center
Web:www.web.net/~fbcja
Email: pmallet@web.net
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Patrick Mallet, Falls Brook Center |
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