FSC Certifies 10 Million Hectares of World's Forest, So What?
8/5/98
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Title: FSC Certifies 10 Million Hectares of World's Forest, So What?
Source: Environmental News Network
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 8/5/98
Byline: Jean-Pierre Kiekens
WWF announced on June 30 that it had reached its target of 10 million
hectares of forests independently certified under the Forest Stewardship
Council -- six months before schedule. This paper analyzes what the
completion of this target means for the conservation of the world's
forests and for the development of certification worldwide.
Types of forests certified
In the early 1990s, when concern about tropical deforestation was at its
peak, WWF insisted that the tropical timber trade should be made
sustainable by 1995. After initially advising to use temperate and boreal
timber instead of tropical timber, WWF expanded in 1993 its target to
boreal and temperate forests, stating that the entire international timber
trade should be based on sustainable forest management by 1995. It was
according to this target that the "1995 Group" was set up in the UK, to
promote the demand for timber from sustainable sources. Member companies,
such as the do-it-yourself retail chain B&Q, pledged at the time to
have all their timber supplies originating from sustainable sources by
1995.
None of the targets by WWF and its corporate allies were achieved. Targets
like the one "to base the entire international timber trade on sustainable
management by 1995" were nonsensical in the first place. But they probably
looked good to the general public, unaware of what they meant, and also to
some corporations, such as B&Q, that probably felt they could get some PR
leverage by endorsing them. Despite its failure to meet its 1995 target,
WWF continued with its "target policies". But since 1995, they relate
to "independent certification" under the FSC.
So, what does the achievement of this target of 10 million ha under FSC
certification represent? According to the Food and Agriculture
Organization, the area of the world's forests, including natural forests
and plantations, was 3,454 million ha in 1995. Thus, the WWF target for
independent certification - 10 million ha by 1998 -- represents only 0.3
percent of the world's forests. Clearly, achieving this target is
meaningless compared to the magnitude of the world's forests and the
problems associated with their sustainable management.
Moreover, an analysis of the acreage data published by FSC indicates that
about 80 percent of the forests under FSC certification are located in
temperate and boreal regions -- mostly in Poland and Sweden (with the pulp
and paper giant AssiDoman being the largest holder of FSC certified
forests). Although a key purpose of the FSC initiative was to deal with
tropical deforestation, FSC certification hasn't had, to date, any
significant effect in curbing tropical deforestation, which, according to
FAO, is estimated to run at 13.7 million hectares per year.
FSC'S professionalism called into question
The FSC scheme has managed, in its short existence, to accumulate a
significant number of cases where its professionalism has been called into
question by several analysts. For example, a former director of FSC,
Professor J. Centeno, wrote last year in Society of American Foresters'
email discussion list that "the FSC has proven incapable of handling
certification in compliance with the principles of professionalism,
credibility, transparency and accountability it has pledged." The cases
where FSC's professionalism have been called into question include:
* A certificate attributed in Gabon to a company which did not
even have a forest management plan. This provoked a campaign
by dissident environmental groups which led, after a year of
contradictory decisions, to the revocation of the
certificate. It led to a major embarrassment not only for
WWF, which strongly supported the certificate as late as June
1997, but also for FSC's executive director, who had declared
publicly that the certificate, issued by SGS-Forestry, was
fully deserved.
* The Flor y Fauna Teakwood scheme in the Netherlands and Costa
Rica, where WWF-Netherlands -- itself a partner in this
fraudulent scheme -- maintained publicly, in the press and in
its own brochures, that a teak plantation in Costa Rica was
certified under FSC, even before any certifiers had been
accredited by FSC. The case also involved deceitful claims
regarding expected returns on the Teakwood scheme. These were
based on grossly inflated timber yield figures, which were
themselves endorsed by "Smartwood" -- a branch of the New
York based Rainforest Alliance, and now an FSC accredited
certifier.
* The FSC certification of public forests in Belgium, with a
major discrepancy between the surface area mentioned in the
evaluation report presented by SGS-Forestry to the Ministry
of Forests of the Walloon region and the one announced in
public by SGS and WWF. The case apparently involved a breach
in a confidentiality agreement and also an intervention of
WWF into the "independent" certification process.
* The FSC certification by SGS of a large tract of 1.5 million
ha of public forests in Poland, without any induced
improvement in forest management -- the only required
"corrective action" was to disseminate the FSC principles
into the forest administration.
* The FSC certification by Smartwood, in the middle of last
winter, of the Haliburton Forest in Canada -- a private
forest that does not even have a management plan.
* The FSC certification by SGS-Forestry of an agricultural
operation -- a rubber plantation in Malaysia -- for which the
assessment report even mentions that it is to be partially
converted to oil palm.
Credibility and clear conscience
This accumulation of dubious certification cases casts doubts about the
credibility of existing and future certificates issued under FSC. If
current trends continue, the question to be asked will be: "Is an FSC
certificate really worth the paper it is written on?" But quite
surprisingly, WWF, which expressed so many concerns in the early '90s
about unsubstantiated sustainability certificates that were used by some
tropical timber traders, continues to maintain that FSC is "the only
credible, independent guarantee that timber comes from well-managed
forests."
WWF also maintains, in full page advertisements in the international press
(Newsweek, New Scientist, etc.), that the public should buy FSC certified
timber products to have a "clear conscience". But, if the public knew all
the facts about FSC, would it really buy FSC labeled products with such a
"clear conscience"? Maybe even some of the WWF supporters may start
having some doubts about the suggestions made by their organization.
WWF has clearly been the major actor in promoting the FSC scheme, which,
in the eyes of number of analysts, is losing its credibility. The question
now is whether WWF can maintain its own credibility when it supports FSC
against all odds and also resorts to simplistic messages such as
recommending the purchase of FSC certified forest products to have a
"clear conscience".
Prospects for the future
The new 2001 target WWF has set -- ironically after having criticized for
years the year 2000 target decided upon by the UN International Tropical
Timber Organization in 1991 to be too remote -- does not specify that
independent certification is to be carried out under the FSC. This is
consistent with the "strategic alliance" WWF concluded in 1997 with the
World Bank, which has made it quite clear that it would not exclusively
support the FSC scheme.
It appears that, to maintain its accord with the World Bank, WWF will have
to recognize, or at least to tolerate, some other certification schemes.
An obvious candidate is ISO-14001, but WWF may find it hard to recognize
it, given the various criticisms it has made about it. Other national
schemes have been developed, or are in development, e.g. in Canada, the
UK, Finland, Indonesia and Malaysia, so that WWF may find it more
attractive to recognize such schemes on a case-by-case basis. The
importance of WWF's viewpoint may however be significantly diminished,
given the lack of judgment it has demonstrated, in the eyes of many
analysts, regarding FSC certification.
The consequences of the credibility problems of WWF and FSC in the area of
forest certification are still unclear. A key consideration will be the
way company members of the various "buyers groups" that have been set up
by WWF in Europe, such as the UK's "1995+Group", will react. In Canada, a
trend is for forest operations to seek certification under several schemes
at the same time. A similar development may well take place on the retail
side. DIY chains and timber traders may recognize several schemes, even if
only the FSC scheme provides a readily available labeling system for
timber products.
WWF may well have achieved its target of 10 million ha certified under FSC
by 1998, but the completion of this target is meaningless from a global
forestry viewpoint. Quite unexpectedly, the somewhat dubious way this
target has been achieved has probably enhanced the prospects that
certification schemes other than FSC will ultimately prevail.
Editor's note: Jean-Pierre Kiekens is a Consultant in Forest Policy and a
Lecturer in Economic Development at the Universit, libre de Bruxelles. His
recent consulting and academic work focused on sustainable forest
management and timber trade. He can be reached at kiekens@ibm.net. Other
papers by Jean-Pierre Kiekens can be consulted at
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/4156/.
Copyright 1998, Jean-Pierre Kiekens, All Rights Reserved