Summary
This study assesses the impact of forest certification on the conservation of biodiversity. To do so the study looked at tree species richness, diversity and density and evaluated what the relationship between these variables and the environmental and human forest use are. Furthermore, it looked at the same variables of tree species richness, diversity and density and the influence of forest governance by adjoining villages on these variables. To do the assessment the study conducted a comparative study of Forest Stewardship Council certified community forests, non-certified open access forests and non-certified state forest reserves in Tanzania.