Social aspects of certification: moderator's summary and commentary

This brief paper comments first and favorably on a paper by Leticia Merino called "Certification: Getting all of the science right." Colfer then summarizes the discussions of the diverse working group composed of people with and without certification experience, developed and developing world researchers, social and biophysical scientists. The group discussed three main topics: identification of stakeholders, methods of assessment, and weighting of different topics. We used the dimensions identified by Colfer for identifying relevant stakeholders (proximity, pre-existing rights, dependency, forest-culture link, indigenous knowledge, power deficit, and poverty) as a starting point. We discussed several methods that CIFOR was developing in collaboration with partners. After agreeing that all three topics, social, ecological and forestry-related, had to "pass" for a group to be certified, we moved on to a discussion of policy, practice and research.