Fighting against deforestation and forest degradation: public and private initiatives

Davide Pettenella - Università di Padova, Italy

The paper deals with the regulative and voluntary policy tools implemented by public institutions, enterprises and civil society to reduce the problems of forest destruction and degradation. In reviewing the initiatives related to the FLEGT and FLEG programs, REDD+ projects, the Due Diligence Regulation and the voluntary instruments like forest certification, a contradiction between the general principles that inspire the policy action and operational decisions is raised and discussed. Modern policy action should in theory favour a shift from regulative to voluntary policy tools, a shift that can be understood in the light of a general change of attention from “government” to “governance”. However, if we examine the development of public institutions’ action to reduce forest degradation, we see the emerging role of “hard” tools like the compulsory Due Diligence system, the VPA-based and the CITES licences. This emerging trend is creating problems of public actions’ effectiveness, of coordination costs and in the active involvement of civil society