The Interplay of Global Governance with Domestic and Local Access: Insights from the FLEGT VPAs in Ghana and Indonesia

Abstract

This article examines the EU FLEGT Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) with Ghana and Indonesia to explore how scale and sources of authority shape access to forest resources. VPAs require the development of internationally recognized legality verification systems to eliminate trade in illegal wood and thus aim to reinforce state law while opening it to broader national and international scrutiny. Analysis of relevant documents, combined with over 70 stakeholder interviews at local to international scales reveal significant differences between Ghana and Indonesia in the design of their verification systems and the attention given to local and domestic forest access. Yet in both countries, a strong focus on legality verification, coupled with a lack of key governance reforms, favors international trade over local access. This calls into question the EU’s growing legality agenda and highlights the need for alternative approaches to reforming domestic resource governance that are more appropriate and beneficial for local forest users.

Keywords:

• Access
• globalization
• governance
• law
• timber
• trade

Notes

1 As discussed later in this article, the Indonesian FLEGT VPA is based on the Indonesian legality verification system “SVLK”. Since most Indonesian stakeholders identified more strongly with the latter, where appropriate, we tailored questions to Indonesian stakeholders around the SVLK rather than the FLEGT VPA.

2 Interviews, two key International NGO FLEGT stakeholders, 5/5/15; 12/7/16.

3 Interview, European Commissioner, 07/09/15.

4 Interview, international environmental NGO a, 12/07/15.

5 The compensation is legally restricted to cocoa trees, as opposed to other crops, although in practice, it typically involves a standard cash payment, irrespective of damage to the land and crops, e.g. see Hirons et al. 2018.

6 Interview, international environmental NGO b, 28/05/15.

7 Interview, domestic lumber association, 09/10/15.

8 Interview, Ghanaian NGO d 08/10/15.

9 Interview, Ghanaian NGO e, 07/10/15.

10 Interview, Forestry Commission a, 06/10/15.

11 Interview, domestic lumber association, 09/10/15.

12 See also (Hajjar 2015) for previous proposals. The focus of this article is on the initiatives currently being discussed among stakeholder interviewees.

13 Interview, local sawmill, 02/10/15.

14 Ibid.

15 There are several social forestry schemes that allow communities to obtain permits to manage the “state forests”: (a) community forestry (hutan kemasyarakatan/HKm); (b) village forests (hutan desa/HD); (c) community plantation forests (hutan tanaman rakyat/HTR); (d) customary forests (hutan adat), and (e) forming partnership with private sectors and Forest (kemitraan kehutanan).

16 Community plantation forests (Hutan Tanaman Rakyat/HTR) is a social forestry scheme issued on production forests that is targeted to allow communities to establish small scale commercial timber plantations.

17 Interview, international environmental NGOc, 29/01/18.

18 Ministry of Forestry and Environment Regulation on Standard and Guidelines on Performance Assessment of Sustainable Production Forest Management and Timber Legality Verification of Permit Holders and Private Forest (PermenLHK 30/2016).

19 Interview, environmental NGO, 01/02/18.

20 Interview, indigenous rights NGOa, 08/03/15, indigenous rights NGOb 14/04/15

21 Ministry of Forestry (MoF) Regulation No. 38 of 2009 on Standard and Guidelines on Performance Assessment of Sustainable Production Forest Management and Timber Legality Verification of Permit Holders and Private Forest

22 Interview, smallholder association community representative, 10/03/15.

23 Interview, environmental NGO, 07/03/15.

24 ibid niii.

25 Ibid nx.

26 The new revision of the decentralization law (Law 23/2014) transfers the authority to manage natural resources from the district to provincial level. The district forest agencies are dissolved and replaced by Forest Management Units that are now in charge for forest management at the local level.

27 Interview, provincial government, 09/02/18.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Prodjus, ESPA, Seventh Framework Programme.