Analysis of European Union Forest Law Enforcement, Governance, and Trade Efficacy: A Multi-Scale Perspective

2020

English

Since the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), the international community has launched several policy initiatives to address complex environmental problems, in particular illegal logging. One such initiative is the European Union (EU) Forest Law Enforcement, Governance, and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan and its Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs). The scholarship on FLEGT has overwhelmingly focused on technical and governance aspects, drawing largely from a single institutional analysis theory. However, there is scant empirical research on a range of theories to understand FLEGT efficacy from a multi-scalar governance perspective. My dissertation research contributes to a multiscalar forest governance analysis approach to FLEGT efficacy by using two strands of concepts—namely policy coherence and institutional capacity for good governance—to answer three of the most critical and under-researched questions: (a) How do the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF) and the United Nations Strategic Plan on Forests (UNSPF) interlink with the FLEGT Action Plan at policy objective and policy instrument levels? (b) What are the potential and realized capacities of VPA processes for advancing principles of good forest governance and implementation of a Timber Legality Assurance System (TLAS) in Cameroon, Central African Republic (CAR), Republic of the Congo (Congo), Ghana, and Liberia? (c) What are the different stakeholders’ perspectives on good governance as applied to VPA in Ghana?

Adams, M.