A spatial dependence approach to assessing the impacts of Sustainable Forestry Initiative’s Fiber Sourcing certification on forestry Best Management Practices in Georgia, United States

Understanding the effectiveness of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative Fiber Sourcing (SFI-FS) standard in increasing/sustaining a high forestry Best Management Practices (BMP) implementation rate is critical for the overall sustainability of southern forestlands. We analyze the impacts of SFI-FS standard on the forestry BMP implementation rate in Georgia, United States, by considering the locations of certified and non-certified mills between 2002 and 2019. The results show each increasing non-certified sourcing area overlap reduces BMP rates by 0.15%, while the same rate goes up by 0.08% overall with each increasing certified sourcing overlap. Moreover, the results of the spatial analyses indicate that neighbors' certified overlaps have a negative effect on average forestry BMP rates associated with a sourcing mill, even though the overall effect is positive. An increase in own harvesting area and mill size reduces BMP rates by 0.056%, but an increase for neighboring sourcing mills increases them by 0.063%, showing an overall positive effect of these two variables. These findings reflect the supply chain inefficiency brought on by concurrent contracting behavior between small mills and their larger certified neighbors. BMP rates are higher in the mill sourcing area by 0.023%, with each increase in the presence of perennial streams, further indicating that loggers are adequately following BMPs in areas that have perennial streams. Our overall results show that spatial dependence is an essential mechanism for ascertaining the effectiveness of SFI-FS standard at large spatial scales.