Course content: The issue of sustainable forest management and responsible use of forest resources has be-come a worldwide concern in recent years. The importance of applying ethics rules to the for-estry sector is growing and it is expected to grow in the future. Both private companies and pub-lic organisations and institutions, at international, regional and local, can play an important role in introducing ethical codes of practices in forestry policies development, in forest resources man-agement, in processing and trading wood and non-wood products and services, in investments, in purchasing commodities coming from responsible management. In order to approach these subjects, the course presents the institutional framework, where several international, regional and national environmental and forest institutions are involved in policy-making, funding, realis-ing, analysing and monitoring the sustainable development of forestry, with different roles and responsibilities. An overview of the main topics which the international agendas are mainly focus-ing on (among others: illegal logging, green public procurements, public participation in envi-ronmental programmes, sustainable forest management standards, Kyoto protocol, etc.) is in-cluded.
Specifically, the students get the opportunity to acquire knowledge of:
(i) main concepts and the-ory related to ethics in forestry, with special reference to business and government ethics, (ii) role and responsibilities in institutional setting of environmental and forest institutions at interna-tional and European level,
(iii) main problems and instruments related to unsustainable uses of forests resources (deforestation processes, illegal logging, etc.);
(iv) Principles, Criteria and In-dicators of Sustainable Forest Management and the governmental and non-governmental proc-esses for their development.
Teaching and learning methods: Lectures introduce the main relevant topics on ethics in forestry, describe roles and competences of institutions and other actors, encourage discussion and critical reflection of inter-connections among institutions and other actors, introduce the relevant processes for de-veloping standards for sustainable forest management.
Examination: An oral exam is conducted. Internal examiner.
Competences acquired: (i) Comprehension of the main concepts related to ethics in forestry, (ii) deep knowledge of business and government ethics applied to the forestry sector, (iii) awareness of the global in-stitutional framework and its complexity, (iv) basic knowledge on international institutional set-tings on environment, social-related issues and forests, (v) understanding of the main problems related to the lack of co-ordination and weaknesses of links among international institutions, (vi) basic knowledge on phenomena such as illegal logging and on sustainable forest management standards developing processes and their implications on forest policies implementation.
Course homepage: www.agraria.unipd.it
Teaching material 2007-2008 on Ethics and CSR in the forestry sector by prof. Davide Pettenella now available!