This paper discusses the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have played in developing and promoting certification in the forest products sector. First, it sheds light on the ways in which certification institutions - private, voluntary mechanisms governing firms' behaviour - emerge and evolve over time. Second, it demonstrates that NGOs are indeed becoming a 'third force' in international politics (See Florini, A. (ed.) (2002) The third force: the rise of transnational civil society. The Carnegie endowment for international peace, Washington, DC, 295 pp.), shifting power away from governments and forever transforming the traditional relationships between states, firms and consumers.

A mail survey was conducted on private landowners in Alabama, USA, during autumn 2000 to investigate the landowners' general attitudes towards certification (level of knowledge of and 'openness to' the forest certification concept), costs and benefits of certification, and cooperation and communication. After reading the definition of forest certification provided in the survey booklet, 22% of respondents reported that they had previously heard of forest certification, while 78% had not heard of certification or were not sure. It was found that 69% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed to learn more about forest certification, and 70% agreed or strongly agreed that it is important to stay up to date with forestry practices and programmes. A normative conviction that certification is 'the right thing to do' was the only more frequently cited condition in seriously considering certification for their forestlands. The three most frequently cited befits include the provision of better wildlife habitat, enhanced timber productivity, and protection of the environment. The importance of landowners' willingness to cooperate with each other varies among forest certification programmes. More than half of the landowners expressed willingness to be certified with other landowners if it would decrease costs. 80% of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed that landowners should work together when new forestry issues arise. Landowner associations, professional foresters and the state government were the three organizations rated most trustworthy by landowners in Alabama. 44% of the respondents said that they would not seriously consider certification for their own forestlands unless they 'had a say' in making the rules.

This paper uses examples from the USA and Costa Rica to evaluate the claim that a new postmodern conservation has emerged in the practice of natural resource management and policy. Natural resource management and policy will be evaluated across four general trends, all of which reflect to some extent the attention to multiple perspectives that is characteristic of postmodernism, i.e. shifts from: (1) simple to multiple interests in natural resources; (2) simple ownership to bundles of rights; (3) deterministic science to multiple knowledge systems; and (4) public interest to stakeholder groups.

Pre-testing of draft survey instruments and telephone-administered questionnaires were conducted to compare the perceptions of two important stakeholder groups in Louisiana, USA: the non-industrial private and corporate forestland owners, about certification. Among the 979 returned surveys, 13% (129 respondents) were corporate timberland owners, while 850 respondents were non-industrial private forestland (NIPF) owners. For all forest/ownership types, NIPF respondents felt a greater need for certification. The respondents also believe that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were strongly influencing the certification movement, closely following that NGOs were the third-party certifiers and certification consultants who have a stake in promoting certification efforts. The entity that respondents trust most was professional foresters who have been approved by a certification organization. Generally, the respondents were not averse to having certifiers check their forestry operations. However, willingness to pay for certification was weak. The respondents highly suggested that Louisiana Department of Agriculture be the third-party certifying agency.

This paper addresses the emergence of 'non-state sanctioned, market driven' (NSMD) by exploring the choices JD Irving made about forest certification in the Canadian Maritimes and USA Northeast. JD Irving is one of the first North American forest companies to support international, environmental group-supported Forest Stewarship Council (FSC). The two stages of decision making through a historical analysis are explained. The paper is presented in four parts: (1) review of the development of forest certification and the FSC; (2) development of the five explanatory hypotheses; (3) illustrates their validity through a step-by-step historical account; and (4) reflects the implications for the future of NSMD governance.