Forest certification and legality initiatives in the Brazilian Amazon: Lessons for effective and equitable forest governance

This paper draws on a case study of the Brazilian Amazon to assess how two widely promoted strategies to govern tropical forests – non-state certification and state-based legality initiatives – interact with tropical wood production systems and the implications this holds for reducing deforestation and degradation and for local benefit-sharing. The assessment is guided by an analytical framework that predicts the relevance and receptiveness of different timber supply chains to current systems of trade-based governance.