In globally important forest areas such as Central Africa, Russia, Indonesia, and the Amazon Basin, the proportion of certified logging operations remains low and is growing slowly. In response, GFW is developing a new Timber Compliance Assessment Partnership (TCAP) approach to identify areas with acceptable forest management practices and increase progress toward forestry certification.
The TCAP approach is designed to provide a low-cost way to assess forest management practices over large areas. In each area, GFW works with a partnership of nongovernmental organizations, research institutions, government agencies, and private corporations to produce timely, accurate, and reliable information on forests and forest use. Generally, TCAPs (a) identify and agree on criteria for acceptable forest management that are easy and cost-effective to assess; (b) share and collect data relevant to the chosen criteria; (c) assess actual forest practices against these criteria; and (d) communicate the results to the public, concerned producers, and jurisdictions.
The techniques for data collection include a combination of remote sensing, voluntary selfreporting, questionnaires, media surveys, and ground observation, as appropriate to the conditions. GFW will contribute expertise, quality control, and material from its library of thousands of satellite images and digital spatial databases of ecologically sensitive areas, protected areas, forest tenure, transportation infrastructure, mill locations, and other relevant data.
TCAPs are under development in three major forest regions:
- Central Africa. GFW has begun testing TCAP in Central Africa (see Timber Companies agree to oversight in Central Africa).
- Russia. The Russian Federal Forest Agency and GFW have agreed to sign a memorandum of understanding to cooperate and share information in national and regional assessments. Large producers in Russia, including IKEA, International Paper, Stora Enso, UPM-Kymmene, and Volga PPM have expressed interest in participating. GFW Russia’s partner organizations include Greenpeace Russia, Socio-Ecological Union International, Biodiversity Conservation Center, WWF in the Russian Far East, the International Forest Institute, and the Space Engineering Center ScanEx.
- Indonesia. With World Bank support, GFW has developed a prototype forest monitoring and governance system in partnership with the Ministry of Forestry and other key experts and stakeholders.
