Social impacts of the FSC certification in the Congo Basin: Effectiveness of negotiated arrangements and platforms of dialogue between logging companies and the local population

Objectives : The general objective of this project is to assess a set of social impacts of FSC-certified logging concessions in selected countries in the Congo Basin, as well as the effectiveness of the local structures set up to regulate the relationship between logging companies that own an FSC-certified logging concession (or forest management unit) and the population neighboring them. Method : Specific objectives of this project: 1. Review of the strategies adopted by 9 FSC-certified forest management units (3 in Cameroon, 3 in Gabon and 3 in the Republic of the Congo) to regulate and sustain the relationship with the local communities that are not yet FSC-certified but that already conduct their forestry operations according to the prescriptions of an officially approved forest management plan; 2. Measure a set of variables that will help assess the social impacts around FSC-certified logging concessions 3. Evaluate the legitimacy and effectiveness of adopted strategies around 9 FSC-certified forest concessions. Both internal and external legitimacy will be analyzed. When necessary, recommendations on ways to improve the current status will be made by considering two main evaluation categories: "system" versus "implementation" failures. System failures concern the lack of proper criterion or indicator in the applied FSC standard, while implementation failures relates to a poor or bad application of criteria and indicators