The Restricting Effects of Forest Certification on the International Trade of Wood Products

Forest certification has increased the cost of companies which has affected the international trade of wood products. This paper examines forest certification costs of companies, and based on this, uses partial equilibrium to analyze its trade restriction effects, and uses space price gradient field model to check whether it is a substitution for tariff barriers. Our conclusion shows that forest certification has restricted the trade of wood products due to its high certified cost, and clarifies that in the case of tariff reduction, trade of wood products are hindered by different levels and different costs of forest certification. This paper implies that efforts should be made to increase the amount of certified forests worldwide. It is necessary to lower the certified cost and important that government policy measures to support certification should include consideration of who bears the cost, support for aggregation of smallholder growers and improved communication in timber supply chains.