Analysis of the relationship among stakeholders affected by sustainable forest management and forest certification

Supporters of sustainable forest management and forest certification are seeking to improve worldwide forest practices. Groups involved in the forest sector will have to adapt themselves to respect new environmental regulations, standards, and agreements linked to these two new concepts. Some forest stakeholders will lose several of their long-time privileges under the pressure of new actors involved in sustainable forest management. Forest managers will have to consider more social values in their planning than they used before. Sustainable forest management and forest certification thus have the potential to resolve, through public participation processes, old conflicts between stakeholders involved in forest management. However, these same processes could be the source of new conflicts. This article analyzes the ways in which relationships between forest stakeholders could be affected by new sustainable forest management rules. Key words: sustainable forest management, certification, forest stakeholder, public participation