Institutional vacuums in Canadian forest policy: Can criteria and indicators and certification of sustainable forest management fill the void?

Abstract

This paper discusses the potential of certification and criteria and indicators (C&I) of sustainable forest management (SFM) for filling voids in forest policy in Canada. These processes have promised advances towards SFM that the current property rights conveyed on the forest industry, through existing systems of tenures, may simply not allow. In general, the broad social welfare approach that current thinking in sustainable development supports, and that certification and criteria and indicators appear to employ, is not consistent with the incentives, rights, and responsibilities that private forestry firms currently hold. There is a fundamental mismatch between the property rights that have been conveyed to private firms operating on public forest lands and what the policy frameworks of certification and C&I are expected to deliver. The conclusion is that if the voids in forest policy are to be successfully filled by certification and C&I, the underlying property rights currently held by firms will need revision.