The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is an international non-state forest certification system. FSC has been developed by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and private business in order to mitigate forest conflicts. As a result, NGOs and the private sector have taken responsibility for sustainable forest management and forest conservation in many regions of the world. Incorporating Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) into the FSC standards could involve expansion of such responsibilities to local communities. FPIC provides local communities with a tool for granting or refusing consent to forestry operations conducted by timber companies. In Russia, such FSC-driven multi-level forest governance is developing against the background of exclusive state ownership of forests and the domination of state-led top-down governance approaches. FSC can encourage the development of a responsive dialogue between local communities and timber companies. However, our study in Northwest Russia, on the basis of interviews and literature analysis, shows that one of the main risks of the application of FPIC within the framework of FSC is ‘responsibilization’ - the transfer of the responsibility of state governance structures to private companies and communities without adequate attention to the latter's capabilities. FPIC can lead to situations where communities acquire new forest governance duties that they are unable to bear. This is especially so in cases where community representation remains unresolved. We argue that FPIC under FSC should not be understood as a transfer of decision-making by formal governance structures to community representatives. Rather, FPIC could be considered as a way to achieve mutual consent around forest management issues and mitigate conflicts between communities and timber companies.

中文翻译：

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非国家森林治理和“责任化”：俄罗斯西北部 FSC 认证下的 FPIC 前景

森林管理委员会 (FSC) 是一个国际非国家森林认证体系。FSC 由非政府组织 (NGO) 和私营企业开发，以减轻森林冲突。因此，非政府组织和私营部门承担了世界许多地区可持续森林管理和森林保护的责任。将自由、事先和知情同意 (FPIC) 纳入 FSC 标准可能涉及将此类责任扩展到当地社区。FPIC 为当地社区提供了一种工具，用于批准或拒绝木材公司开展的林业经营活动。在俄罗斯，这种由 FSC 驱动的多级森林治理正在国家独占森林所有权和国家主导的自上而下的治理方式占主导地位的背景下发展。FSC 可以鼓励发展当地社区和木材公司之间的积极对话。然而，我们在俄罗斯西北部的研究，在访谈和文献分析的基础上，表明 FPIC 在 FSC 框架内应用的主要风险之一是“责任化”——将国家治理结构的责任转移给私人公司和社区没有充分关注后者的能力。FPIC 可能导致社区获得他们无法承担的新森林治理职责的情况。在社区代表仍未解决的情况下尤其如此。我们认为 FSC 下的 FPIC 不应被理解为正式治理结构将决策权转移给社区代表。相当，