The effect of forest certification on conservation and sustainable forest management

This study examined the effect of sustainable forest management schemes on forest conservation using remote sensing data on forest change. We applied fixed effect models focusing on two major sustainable forest management schemes: the Forest Stewardship Council and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification. Contrary to the findings from previous research, the regression results showed that expansion of the sustainable forest management area was uncorrelated with forest loss when controlling for the fixed effects of country and time. These findings were robust to the different definitions of a forest and country groups' OECD membership. Our estimations suggested that sustainable forest management increased forest loss in non-certified forest areas, indicating the leakage of forest loss from certified to non-certified forest areas. This implies that leakage effects should be considered when implementing forest management or protected forest schemes.