‘Forests & Society Towards 2050’ – CLEVER at IUFRO
CLEVER researchers attended the IUFRO World Congress from June 24 to 29, 2024. These event occurs every five years in different member countries, bringing together interdisciplinary forest science researchers from around the globe. This year it took place in Stockholm, where over 4,300 global delegates attended and participated in 3,500 presentations, showcased more than 70 innovations, and engaged in various other activities. Metodi Sotirov, Laila Berning and Rafaella Ferraz Ziegert, CLEVER scientists from the University of Freiburg, presented their ongoing research on international forest and environmental governance and regulation.
Metodi Sotirov presented joint research with Laila Berning and other collaborators on transnational timber legality and deforestation policy changes in the EU, UK, USA and China, and their implications for tropical countries. Their presentation included CLEVER-related research and findings from Berning and Sotirov’s previous work on the EU Deforestation Regulation (Policy Brief, Final Study Report). The main research focus was on the perceptions of key regulatory and socio-economic challenges of external EU policy action to regulate legal and sustainable forest and agricultural supply chains. The main regulatory issues identified were incoherent regulatory standards, differences in political will and administrative capacities in the EU, US, China and tropical countries, as well as contested legitimacy and a lack of trust in external EU policy action. The main socio-economic issues included insufficient market support, risks of market shifts, and increasing costs and burdens. Additionally, Metodi Sotirov co-chaired a panel on EU forest policy, where internal EU policy matters were discussed, including tensions between the EU and its member states regarding forest biodiversity conservation, forest and rural development, and forest bioenergy use.
Rafaella Ferraz Ziegert presented her CLEVER project-related research, co-authored by Metodi Sotirov, on the regulatory politics of Brazil’s Amazon Soy Moratorium. This study explains how and why private and public actors collaborated to adopt and enforce this governance mechanism, signed in 2006, to ensure deforestation-free soy production in the Amazon. It highlights the mechanism’s main market and regulatory outcomes, such as possible ‘losers’ and a failed policy spillover attempt to the Cerrado region, and analyzes the factors contributing to its governance longevity.
Laila Berning presented a poster, co-authored by Metodi Sotirov, Ahmad Maryudi, Andita Aulia Pratama and Dwi Laraswati, on the trade-offs and synergies of EU and tropical producer country public policy and governance initiatives regulating forest and ecosystem-risk commodities (FERCs) and their effects on deforestation and forest degradation. Key findings include that policies and governance mechanisms at international, transnational, and national levels regulating FERC value chains rely on a combination of legally binding and non-binding intervention logics. These designs aim to create synergies with other intervention logics within the same instrument or other instruments. However, these synergies do not yield the expected results due to implementation and enforcement shortcomings. These findings draw on ongoing CLEVER research and previous research on implementing the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan in Europe and Indonesia, and the implications of timber legality and deforestation policy changes in the EU, UK, USA and China.
Participation in the congress provided excellent opportunities to exchange and gain insights on the latest findings in the research area. The latest global IUFRO report, “International Forests Governance: A Critical Review of Trends, Drawbacks, and New Approaches,” co-authored by CLEVER researchers Metodi Sotirov and Rafaella Ferraz Ziegert, was also presented. The report sheds light on a more pluralistic and complex understanding of international forest governance (IFG), one that is not simplified by ‘climatization’ or carbon markets. Other findings highlight IFG’s ‘limited effectiveness’ despite being presented as a dominant solution in addressing deforestation, forest emissions and biodiversity loss, and emphasize the importance of alternative finance mechanisms and a critical perspective considering justice and power asymmetries.
