Fair sourcing and trade practices

The FairWild Standard is a unique guidance tool for fair sourcing and trade practices and effective resource management of all plants, lichens and fungi collected from the wild. It includes comprehensive provisions for ecologically sound, socially fair and economically viable resource management practices, making it a true sustainability standard.

These help contribute to:
•    Poverty alleviation
•    Conservation of biodiversity

Implementation

The Standard can be implemented by wild-collection operations and government agencies, such as forest authorities, in a variety of ways:
•    Species-specific certification
•    As a guide for community-based plant collection and resource management
•    As a guide for resource management through government authorities

National legislation and policies

Governments can use the FairWild Standard as a model for the development of national laws and regulations governing fair trade practices, the conservation of biodiversity or the management of plant collection from the wild.

FairWild has helped shape biodiversity and resource management legislation in countries such as Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The National Medicinal Plants Board of India has included parts of FairWild’s ecological module (the former ISSC-MAP) in its Guidelines for Good Field Collection Practices of Medicinal Plants (in print).

While the entire standard needs to be considered and implemented successfully in order to achieve FairWild certification, it is possible to focus only on specific parts of the Standard to help guide national or regional legislative and policy processes.

The fair trade sector

Some countries are developing ways to manage the still largely unregulated fair trade sector. This sector has witnessed a considerable diversification in the numbers of private standards and labels in recent years. While this development has contributed to breaking the monopoly of a single private label, it has led to a certain amount of confusion in the marketplace and amongst consumers.

In order to regulate the sector and build a quality framework, governments will need to develop fair trade regulations in the next few years.

FairWild, through its coverage of social and fair trade issues, can provide guidance for governments or bodies like the European Union in drafting such legislation that will be meaningful to both agricultural and wild collection operations.