10/05/00 -- Malaysian Timber Firms Seek Certification to Boost Rainforest Sales

***********************************************

WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

Malaysian Timber Firms Seek Certification to Boost Rainforest Sales

***********************************************

Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org

http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Archives & Portal

10/05/00

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY

Malaysian tropical timber exporters are trying desperately to

legitimize their deadly rainforest harvests. In their own country,

and in essentially all major remaining old-growth forest regions,

Malaysian logging companies are the biggest threat to the World's

biodiversity and continued ecosystem functioning; practicing

unprecedented intensive and extensive industrial mining of ancient

old growth forests wherever they can bribe or otherwise manipulate

access to endangered old-growth forests. After years of outrageous

abuses, they are now actively courting certification of their

industrial logging practices in response to increasing demands for

independent confirmation that forest products come from socially and

environmentally responsible and sustainable sources. And it appears

that the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), which has already thrown

itself on the sword of forest certification as a means to ensure

global forest sustainability, has bitten on their offer-perhaps

prematurely.

It is absolutely essential at this critical juncture in the

determination of what activities are allowable in the World's

remaining ancient forests that FSC certification not become merely a

passport to log and thus ecologically diminish the majority of the

world's remaining old-growth forests-albeit in a somewhat less

destructive fashion than has historically been the case. When a

forest is harvested for the first time, it irreparably changes

forever. Malaysian timber industry pledges of a new found commitment

to ecologically sustainable natural forest management must not be

restricted to management of their own forests. The Malaysian timber

vultures must pledge an immediate de-escalation of their aggressive

and deadly targeting of all remaining forest wildernesses worldwide-

Brazil, Papua New Guinea and Cameroon to name but a few. The must be

NO reduction in FSC standards as incentives to pull the timber mafia

into the certification standard. And above all, there is an urgent

and immediate need to establish procedures to determine when

preservation of rainforests is preferable to any logging, albeit in a

certified method; and intensified efforts to fund strict

preservation, including offsetting lost local revenues. I harbor

grave doubts that these grotesquely unsustainable Malaysian timber

miners deserve to be granted the privilege of managing the World's

biological heritage.

g.b.

*******************************

RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

Title: Malaysia teams up with greenies to boost timber sales abroad

Date: October 3, 2000

By: Gwen Benjamin, dpa

Tropical timber exporter Malaysia has teamed up with foreign

environmental groups to improve its forestry practices in a strategic

move to win green-conscious buyers abroad.

Malaysia, which once viewed "eco-labelling" as a market barrier, last

year bowed to consumer demands and set up a national "certification"

council that aims to reassure foreign buyers that the wood was

harvested in accordance with good environmental practices.

"If you can't beat them, join them. That's what Malaysia is doing,"

said Balu Perumal, who heads the forest conservation unit of the

World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Malaysia.

Aware that foreign consumers might doubt the Malaysian certification

standards, the Malaysian Timber Certification Council (MTCC) has

begun talks to try and win endorsement from the Mexico-based Forest

Stewardship Council (FSC).

Although there are various certification schemes run by Western

agencies and environmental groups, the FSC, which is an independent

NGO, is recognised as the premier accreditation body.

"FSC acceptance of our national standards will certainly help our

markets abroad," said Chew Lye Teng, the head of the state-run MTCC.

"The presence of the FSC is very strong, especially in European

countries like Germany and the U.K, which is why we want to work with

them," he told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, in an interview.

"We say 'yes' to certification not just to meet the market's demands,

but also to ensure good forest management in our country," he added.

Malaysia's timber exports rose 20 per cent last year to 17.1 billion

ringgit (4.5 billion dollars), with most exports going to East Asian

markets including China and Japan.

Malaysia's timber authorities will meet with FSC officials in Kuala

Lumpur in December, where they will discuss the setting up of a

Malaysian national working group - one of the conditions demanded by

the FSC.

Apart from industry players, the group's members must comprise

environmentalists, indigenous peoples and other social justice groups

that have in the past accused the Malaysian government of

indiscriminate logging.

"It'll be a long process before we can talk of FSC endorsement in

Malaysia," admitted Chew, as FSC would withhold approval unless all

group members support Malaysia's certification standards.

Malaysia began working on its own certification scheme about seven

years ago, based on the International Tropical Timber Organization's

set of criteria for sustainable forest management among member

countries.

Malaysia is one of the first countries in Southeast Asia to try and

set up an FSC-recognised national working group that will handle the

whole process of assessing, monitoring and certifying timber from

sustainably managed forests.

Currently, the FSC is invited by individual timber firms in the

region to certify selected forest plantations.

In Malaysia's Sabah state on Borneo island, the FSC has endorsed

products from the 55,000-hectare, state-owned Deramakot plantation

under a programme partly funded by the German GTZ aid agency.

Another plantation in Perak state is also in talks with the FSC.

Malaysia has already in the past four years sold "green" timber to

the Netherlands, in a joint programme with the Kerhault Foundation,

an independent Dutch timber verification body.

The Netherlands is Malaysia's biggest European market and buyer of

sawn timber, with import volume last year up by 1.2 per cent to 532.2

million ringgit (140 million dollars). Malaysian sawn timber exports

to the E.U., however, dropped by 2.9 per cent in volume last year.

Malaysia opted to work with Kerhault after its Dutch market plunged

by a third in the mid-1990s because buyers were shunning non-labelled

wood products.

However, Kerhault's managing director Kees Bosdijk voiced concern

over a recent proliferation of certification schemes by green groups,

saying the "tribal warfare" only confused consumers.

"One single label is preferred," he said at a recent conference in

Kuala Lumpur. New schemes include the Pan-European Forest

Certification, the Pan-African Forest Certification, while Finland

has its own national system.

The WWF's Perumal said tropical timber exporters like Malaysia and

environmental groups, which were once at logger-heads, have since had

a "change of mindset" and dropped their "confrontational stance."

"In fact, some green groups accuse us of being too forgiving because

they see certification as a licence to log," he said.

"But we say that if we don't start on this, logging will still happen

and we're going to lose the forests anyway," he said. The WWF sits on

the board of the MTCC and is also a member of the FSC.

Perumal said the WWF was also trying to get FSC-endorsed national

working groups in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Cambodia and Vietnam.

He dismissed fears that timber exporters may abuse their FSC tags by

lax implementation of pledged conservation policies.

"You can track the timber. If there's any abuse, there is the big

danger of losing certification. Certification itself is the carrot

for exporters," he said.

However, Julian Newman, of the U.S. and British-based Environmental

Investigation Agency, said the FSC system was a "good idea on paper"

but could become a "fake documentation system" if not well regulated.

Greedy logging companies could see the FSC label as a way to make

more money because they can sell timber in Europe for much more if

they can prove it is legal by showing a certificate.

"They probably looked at this and said, 'The way forward is to change

our spots a bit," he said recently in Jakarta.

###RELAYED TEXT ENDS###

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is

distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior

interest in receiving forest conservation informational materials for

educational, personal and non-commercial use only. Recipients should

seek permission from the source to reprint this PHOTOCOPY. All

efforts are made to provide accurate, timely pieces, though ultimate

responsibility for verifying all information rests with the reader.

For additional forest conservation news & information please see the

Forest Conservation Archives & Portal at URL= http://forests.org/

Networked by Forests.org, Inc., gbarry@forests.org