Certificação do manejo florestal comunitário: desafios na definição de indicadores para a avaliação local

Abstract

Amongst the alternatives for the use and conservation of natural resources with social development there is the community forest management. In the Brazilian Amazon there are experiences that involve local people in these economic alternatives. In some cases, these projects have obtained the forest certification, stimulated many times by governmental and non-governmental organizations. For the assessment of forest certification, the projects need to observe a standard, which is checked by certification bodies. In the Brazilian Amazon, the FSC certification system is the most accessed by forest communities’ projects and there is a national standard that guides the certification. This work investigated a community that works to reach the FSC certification. Using ethnographic field research, it looked for similarities and divergences between the local context and the standard’s contents. Although the standard demonstrates that, to a large extent, it contains good thresholds to verify the sustainable forest management, there are some indicators that must be revised. Moreover, a good point for the certification bodies could be an revision of the procedures of audit which allow more participation of the community members and which minimize the external interference in the local traditions.