Data from: Social and environmental impacts of forest management certification in Indonesia

In response to unsustainable timber production in tropical forest
concessions, voluntary forest management certification programs such as
the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) have been introduced to improve
environmental, social, and economic performance over existing management
practices. However, despite the proliferation of forest certification over
the past two decades, few studies have evaluated its effectiveness. Using
temporally and spatially explicit village-level data on environmental and
socio-economic indicators in Kalimantan (Indonesia), we evaluate the
performance of the FSC-certified timber concessions compared to
non-certified logging concessions. Employing triple difference matching
estimators, we find that between 2000 and 2008 FSC reduced aggregate
deforestation by 5 percentage points and the incidence of air pollution by
31%. It had no statistically significant impacts on fire incidence or core
areas, but increased forest perforation by 4 km2 on average. In addition,
we find that FSC reduced firewood dependence (by 33%), respiratory
infections (by 32%) and malnutrition (by 1 person) on average. By
conducting a rigorous statistical evaluation of FSC certification in a
biodiversity hotspot such as Indonesia, we provide a reference point and
offer methodological and data lessons that could aid the design of ongoing
and future evaluations of a potentially critical conservation policy.