Australian Forest governance: a comparrison of two certification schemes

Conflict over how forests should be managed has been a perennial feature of Australian environmental policy. In the early 2000s, these conflicts spilled over into a ‘certification war’ between two international forest certification standards – the Australian Forestry Standard, championed by industry and government, and the Forest Stewardship Council, championed by environmental civil society organisations. A key issue at stake in Australia’s certification war is how similar or different the two schemes are. Building on the extensive literature on ‘new governance’, this article undertakes a systematic comparative analysis of the two schemes utilising a three-dimensional governance framework. The comparison reveals significant differences in the political, institutional and regulatory arrangements employed by each scheme.