Monitoring and information reporting for sustainable forest management: An inter-jurisdictional comparison of soft law standards

It is difficult to determine the information required to address sustainable forest management (SFM) issues. In the case of local-level soft law standards, such as third-party forest certification, the information must ensure adequate planning, inventory, reporting, inspection and compliance. It must also serve the practical and strategic needs of both the certified and certifying organization. In this study, the nature of the monitoring and information reporting required under soft law was obtained through a purposive sample of forestry soft law standards from North America and Europe. An inductive and investigative process was designed to formulate theory regarding the observed phenomena by systematically gathering and analyzing relevant data. The resulting matrix highlights many similarities and differences in the specific content of the soft law standards from different jurisdictions in North America and Europe. The results emphasise the importance of transparency, cooperation and comparison when evaluating third-party certification in different jurisdictions. They confirm the notion that international comparisons of forest management need to better reflect forest management standards rather than taking forest certification at face value. When considered in the context of globalization and internationalization, the research findings support international efforts to encourage the harmonization of SFM-related monitoring and information reporting.