INTRODUCTION The purpose of this report is to assess the effectiveness of (mainly voluntary) certification for land-based commodities as an instrument to address global deforestation, forest degradation and other ecosystem conversion and associated human rights abuses (including violations of Indigenous rights and labour rights).
Ultimately the aim is to inform decision making by governments and companies on what role certification can play as a tool for cleaning up supply chains, what reforms are required and what other measures are needed to address the wider biodiversity and climate crisis. The world’s forests are a crucial defence against spiralling climate change, and are home to many Indigenous and local communities and innumerable species of animals and plants. The current global health crisis and ongoing ecological and climate breakdown share many of the same drivers, including the destruction of forests and other natural ecosystems by industrial agriculture – as humans encroach into previously natural habitats and pathogens transfer from wild animals to humans, the risk of further diseases like COVID-19 emerging only
14
Introduction
increases.1 UNEP reports that between 70% and 80% of total deforestation globally is caused by agricultural production, mainly animal farming and soya and oil palm plantations.2 Underlying the ecological collapse is the neoliberal economic system, based on growth, consumerism and extractivism. Agricultural and industrial forestry expansion also contributes to the conversion or degradation of other natural ecosystems such as wetlands (especially peatlands), savannahs, shrublands and grasslands.3 This continuous destruction
1
Everard, M., et al. (2020)
2 IRP (2019) p.90 3 See eg Bonanomi, J., et al. (2019).
