Best Practices for Improving Law Compliance in the Forest Sector (Fao Forestry Papers)

Book excerpt: Forest law compliance is attracting increased attention in the international forest policy arena as significant volumes of timber are illegally felled, processed and traded every year. Illegal logging and associated trade are a complex issue with far-reaching environmental, social and economic consequences. Various stakeholders at the local, national and international levels are making efforts to address the issue. Several governments are in the process of rationalizing their legal and policy framework, building institutional capacity to foster better law compliance and gathering additional data on the extent and nature of illegal operations. Private initiatives such as forest certification, voluntary corporate codes of conduct, independent monitoring of forest operations and log tracking are also contributing to fighting forest crime. This publication provides an overview of these experiences to foster better forest law compliance. It analyses available knowledge in a set of best practices drawn from 11 country case studies, which decision-makers may wish to apply to reduce illegal operations in the forest sector.