In response to the clearing of tropical forests for agricultural expansion, agri-food companies have adopted promises to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains in the form of ‘zero-deforestation commitments’ (ZDCs). While there is growing evidence about the environmental effectiveness of these commitments (i.e., whether they meet their conservation goals), there is little information on how they influence producers’ opportunity to access sustainable markets and related livelihood outcomes, or how design and implementation choices influence tradeoffs or potential synergies between effectiveness and equity in access. This paper explores these research gaps and makes three main contributions by: i) defining and justifying the importance of analyzing access equity and its relation to effectiveness when implementing forest-focused supply chain policies such as ZDCs, ii) identifying seven policy design principles that are likely to maximize synergies between effectiveness and access equity, and iii) assessing effectiveness-access equity tensions and synergies across common ZDC implementation mechanisms amongst the five largest firms in each of the leading agricultural forest-risk commodity sectors: palm oil, soybeans, beef cattle, and cocoa. To enhance forest conservation while avoiding harm to the most vulnerable farmers in the tropics, it is necessary to combine stringent rules with widespread capacity building, greater involvement of affected actors in the co-production of implementation mechanisms, and support for alternative rural development paths. 相似文献
ABSTRACTAlthough efforts in improving forest rights across developing countries are growing, de jure property rights and physical ownership of forests do not automatically enable farmers to obtain benefits from forests. Their access to forest benefits is limited by a range of legal and extralegal mechanisms. This case study describes a notable pattern of timber-harvest governance in China, in which centralized quota setting and allocation allow rent-seeking behavior on the part of powerful local elites who control timber harvest and trade by handing out logging permits, and who also reap the greatest proportion of benefits. It is argued that excluding farmers from harvesting and trade discourages them from investing in forest conservation over the long term. This calls for a policy to gradually remove the quota system so that farmers can obtain forest benefits. 相似文献