Certification schemes have emerged in recent years to become a significant and innovative venue for standard setting and governance in the environmental realm. This review examines these schemes in the forest sector where, arguably, their development is among the most advanced of the...

For those championing an international institutional solution to climate change, the forest-climate linkage through reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and forest enhancement (REDD+) may be one of the most promising strategic linkages to date. Following a series of...

Socioenvironmental certification is a market-based mechanism aimed to foster sustainability of production systems. However, mainstream certification schemes in the agricultural sector have been adopted primarily by larger and more established producers, indicating an unequal distribution of...

The long-term objective of the 2003 EU FLEGT Action Plan was to ensure a legal trade of timber products within and between countries and, by doing so, clear a pathway towards global sustainability and good governance. Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) between the EU and producing countries...

Forests in lowland Bolivia suffer from severe deforestation caused by different types of agents and land use activities. We identify three major proximate causes of deforestation. The largest share of deforestation is attributable to the expansion of mechanized agriculture, followed by cattle...