Do environmental advocacy campaigns drive successful forest conservation?

Pablo Pacheco, a principal scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), said that it is probably “reasonable to assume” that companies facing social pressure will tend to more actively support sustainable practices, but that we simply don’t know how much advocacy campaigns actually drive successful implementation of sustainability commitments.

“Much of the zero deforestation commitments have resulted from pressure originated in civil society organizations,” he said. “Nonetheless, there is not too much evidence on what is the extent to which zero deforestation commitments resulting from advocacy campaign[s] are more or less likely to be implemented effectively in comparison to commitments not directly linked to campaigns.”