About

The Forest Governance and Policy (FGP) team - formerly the Forest Legality Initiative - at the World Resources Institute (WRI) aims to halt forest loss and reduce illegal logging through three levers: by increasing capacity for compliance with laws and regulations in the private sector; by increasing transparency within agricultural and forest products trade and improving access to supply chain information; and by catalyzing the application of scientific verification methods for claims about the species and origin of products. WRI’s work on Forest Governance and Policy also aims to learn from and apply lessons from supply and demand-side interventions to reduce illegal logging to other commodities associated with deforestation and forest degradation.

WRI's work on forest products and legal supply chains builds the Forest Legality Alliance (FLA), which was formed in 2010 by the WRI and the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The Alliance was an international, multi-stakeholder initiative designed to achieve better forest governance and biodiversity conservation by reducing demand for illegally harvested forest products and by increasing the capacity of supply chains to deliver legal wood and paper.

Our work on effective policy measures for legal and deforestation-free supply chains for forest and agricultural products builds on and expands on these activities. We draw on WRI's offices in Asia, Africa and Latin America for regional expertise, and work closely with other WRI teams focusing on forest monitoring.

Our work is divided into three main categories: Better Business Practices, Decision Support Tools, and Forest Policy.