Forest Law Enforcement & Governance in ASEAN

Diploma Thesis from the year 2011 in the subject Politics - Environmental Policy, grade: 1,0, University of Potsdam (Lehrstuhl für Internationale Politik), language: English, abstract: The problem of deforestation and forest degradation is currently highly prominent on the international agenda. In September 2001, the East Asia Ministerial Conference on Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (FLEG) took place in Bali, Indonesia and adopted the Bali Declaration. The participating countries committed themselves to strengthen their efforts in combating illegal logging and other forest crimes. In June 2010 the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) published a review of FLEG progress in Asia and the Pacific, keeping the issue a priority in global environmental governance.

Although the region of Southeast Asia accommodates only 5% of the world¿s forests, it accounts for nearly 25% of the global forest loss over the past decade, whereas illegal logging is the major cause (World Bank 2010). Therefore this region is closely watched by the international community regarding progress towards sustainable forest management (SFM). The practice of illegal logging leads to an estimated annual loss of US$ 15 billion in developing countries.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) recognizes the importance of FLEG as a way to hinder these huge economic losses as well as the environmental and social consequences. The improvement of the region¿s reputation and competitiveness in the international market is a pivotal goal.

Yet, deforestation and forest degradation remains an intensifying problem in the region. Traditional forms of state-led global environmental governance seem to fail achieving effective progress in governing the sensitive issue of forestry, where trade, environment as well as social values intersect. Due to the inadequate action of states, private forest certification schemes have emerged as a powerful and prominent type of non-state global environmental governance. This development led scholars and practitioners to consider non-state or private governance as a potential alternative solution for global forest governance.

The aim of this thesis is to systematically assess the chances and limits of transnational private forest governance in ASEAN. The overall intention in writing this paper is to contribute to our understanding of private and public governance and their collaboration. Therefore the central research question of this paper is whether and under what conditions private sector involvement can increase forest governance in ASEAN.