By: Yeong Sheng Tey and Suryani Darham

 

A general consensus prevails that certification and verification schemes face fundamental challenges. Small and medium-sized enterprises and smallholders generally have limited capacity to cope with both monetary and non-monetary audit and certification costs. Compared to large plantation firms, they are disadvantaged to allocate resources from their already scarce pool to meet the minimum standards. The resource need rises further for complying with varied requirements of different schemes. It is equally challenging for certified growers to follow up with standard revision or risk withdrawal/suspension. For non-certified growers, every revision raises the bar of entry higher.

 

Governments, development agencies, and other stakeholders have jointly recognized that the integrity of sustainable palm oil requires a jurisdictional approach that goes beyond individual units of certification/verification. Drawn from Denier et al. (2015) and Nepstad (2017), Buchanan et al. (2019) define jurisdictional approach as “an integrated landscape approach which aims to reconcile competing social, economic and environmental objectives through participation by a range of stakeholders across sectors, implemented within government administrative boundaries, and with a form of government involvement.” Governmental bodies usually take the lead in bringing together farmers, communities, companies, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

 

Because jurisdictional approach to sustainable palm oil is a relatively new concept, a rapid literature review was undertaken. Seymour et al. (2020) identify key components affecting the effectiveness of jurisdictional initiatives as follows:

• Articulating jurisdictional-scale visions, targets, and roadmaps with a focus on the performance of the whole landscape;
• Convening multistakeholder forums, with leadership of government together with NGOs, communities, the private sector, and smallholders;
• Promulgating plans in alignment with the activities and inputs of stakeholders to increase effectiveness;
• Supporting specific program activities towards shared goals that support sustainable development; and
• Developing monitoring and reporting systems to provide credibility and assurance including long-term governance, transparency, communication, and verification.

 

The success of jurisdictional approaches will also depend on how decision makers and stakeholders navigate various challenges. These include:

• Governance - Vertical alignment of jurisdictional approaches with local and national initiatives (Hsu et al., 2017);
• Governance - Horizontal alignment between initiatives (Hsu et al., 2017);
• Governance - Political and bureaucratic turnover (Fishbein and Lee, 2015);
• Inclusiveness - Fair representation of both elite and marginal stakeholders (Lambin et al., 2018);
• Inclusiveness – Address different priorities of stakeholders (Glasbergen, 2018);
• Funding – Attracting and sustaining both public and private funding (Hovani et al., 2018).

 

Malaysia is on its way to scale up sustainable palm oil jurisdictions. In 2015, Sabah Jurisdictional Approach for Sustainable Palm Oil was launched as a 10-year plan to produce 100% RSPO certified sustainable palm oil in Sabah by 2025. Two jurisdictional initiatives have recently joined the force: the National Initiatives for Sustainable and Climate-Smart Oil Palm Smallholders (NI-SCOPS) and the Sustainability of Malaysian and Indonesian Palm Oil (KAMI) projects. These projects are built under the Malaysia-European Union partnership and aim to facilitate evidence-based communication.

Authors of this article are collaborative members, who are now in the process of developing the NI-SCOPS and KAMI jurisdictional initiatives. Further to previous findings, our review of other sustainable palm oil jurisdictional initiatives reveals that the probability of success also hinges upon multistakeholder governance, emphases unique to the jurisdiction, and the ability to install a feedback system involving policy, practice, and performance indicators.

 

Disclaimer:

The contents expressed in this article are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of ITAFoS.

 

References:

Buchanan, A. J., Durbin, J., McLaughlin, D., McLaughlin, L., Thomason, K., & Thomas, M. (2019). Exploring the reality of the jurisdictional approach as a tool to achieve sustainability commitments in palm oil and soy supply chains. Conservation International: Washington, DC, USA.

Denier, L., Scherr, S. J., Shames, S., Chatterton, P., Hovani, L., & Stam, N. (2015). The Little Sustainable Landscapes Book: Achieving sustainable development through integrated landscape management.

Fishbein G and Lee D. (2015). Early lessons from jurisdictional REDD+ and low emissions development programs. Arlington, VA: The Nature Conservancy.

Glasbergen, P. (2018). Smallholders do not eat certificates. Ecological Economics, 147, 243-252.

Hovani, L., Cortez, R., Hartanto, H., Thompson, I., Fishbein, G., Adams, J., & Madeira, E. M. (2018). The role of jurisdictional programs in catalyzing sustainability transitions in tropical forest landscapes. Arlington, VA: The Nature Conservancy.

Hsu, A., Weinfurter, A. J., & Xu, K. (2017). Aligning subnational climate actions for the new post-Paris climate regime. Climatic Change, 142(3), 419-432.

Lambin, E. F., Gibbs, H. K., Heilmayr, R., Carlson, K. M., Fleck, L. C., Garrett, R. D., ... & Walker, N. F. (2018). The role of supply-chain initiatives in reducing deforestation. Nature Climate Change, 8(2), 109-116.

Nepstad, D. C. (2017). Jurisdictional sustainability: a primer for practitioners. Earth Innovation Institute. http://earthinnovation. org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/JS-primer_Englishonline. pdf.

Seymour, F. J., Aurora, L., & Arif, J. (2020). The jurisdictional approach in Indonesia: Incentives, actions, and facilitating connections. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, 3, 124.

 

Date of Input: 29/09/2022 | Updated: 03/10/2022 | norshahmimi