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FOREST CONSERVATION NEWS TODAY

Malaysian Rainforest Logging Cartels Seek FSC Certification

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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org, Inc.

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

http://forests.org/links/ -- Forest Conservation Links

09/04/01

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by Forests.org

The notorious Malaysian loggers are seeking Forest Stewardship

Council (FSC) certification for their rainforest logging in Sarawak.

This after nearly two decades of ecosystem liquidation and virtual

genocide waged on indigenous peoples. These vandals have devastated

the island of Borneo, waging ecological crimes on a massive scale.

Many of these logging companies operate outside of Malaysia,

threatening with industrial harvest virtually all remaining large

rainforest expanses. The Malaysian logging cartels are plundering

Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Cameroon and Cambodia; and

have gained a toehold for their extensive rainforest plundering in

Brazil and many of the World's other remaining large rainforests.

Industrial logging of the scale and intensity practiced by the

Malaysian timber cartels and others is inherently unsustainable and

unworthy of being labeled as "green" by FSC.

Forest certification in its current form is inappropriate in old-

growth forest wildlands. I know of not one peer reviewed scientific

journal article that shows commercial scaled forest management,

certified or not, approaches ecological sustainability. We know from

ecological science that commercial logging of old growth for the

first time changes forever their ecology. The entire structure and

scale of the commercial logging industry, in rainforests in

particular, is not able to sustain ecological process and pattern

across forest landscapes and regions. You cannot commercially log

90% of a given landscape, however benignly, and expect the remaining

large-scale system to be whole in terms of diversity or ecosystem

process.

Certification of secondary forest management, and certification of

small and medium scale community based eco-forestry management in

primary forests, is the only logging that produces timbers worthy of

a green stamp of approval. The forest conservation community will

not accept FSC certification that results in more industrial forest

lands being created from the rapidly dwindling pool of large, natural

forests. The question is whether FSC can meet the demand for

certified timbers if it cannot access the World's last large, wild

forests for commercial logging. If old-growth logging is a

requirement for FSC to be viable, FSC is a threat to the World's

forest wildernesses, and its green stamp of approval is a joke. If

so, this would drive home the point that reductions in forest product

consumption - not growing the market for tropical timber products -

is the answer to the World's forest decline.

In sum, certifying the World's most voracious industrial logging

companies would legitimize the industrial harvest of most of the

World's old-growth wildlands, as long as the most basic and

rudimentary commercial best management practices are followed. FSC's

principles in regard to high conservation value forests are flawed

because they are rooted on the premise that commercial scale logging

should be in fact occurring there in the first place. I am aghast

that FSC and partners would legitimize the scale and intensiveness of

the Malaysian logger's management, and thinks these ecological

marauders are worthy of being entrusted with managing the world's

remaining rainforests. Adding insult to injury, they then want to

sell these ill gotten timbers as a "green" product to forest

conservationists and the public.

Global ecological sustainability depends upon maintaining remaining

forest wildlands, benignly managing regenerating forests including

certification, and restoring the extent and condition of forests.

The nature of being is fundamentally ecological and we are

approaching thresholds of loss of ecosystems beyond which

sustainability is unlikely. There is a greenwash going on regarding

commercial scale old-growth logging being environmentally acceptable

and worthy of FSC certification. And forest conservationists are

not going to buy it.

g.b.

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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

Title: Malaysia loggers consider turning over new leaf

Source: Copyright 2001 Reuters

Date: September 4, 2001

By: Patrick Chalmers

BAKUN, Malaysia - A logging lorry rumbles into Bakun camp in the

centre of Malaysia's Sarawak state, kicking up clouds of dust as it

stops to unload another haul of tropical timber culled near the

Indonesian border.

Standing at the transit stop, amid the giant trunks of towering

meranti, kapor and keruing trees being taken to the coast, it is

hard to imagine an industry considering moves to toughen

environmental rules.

Logs from this corner of the rain-forested island of Borneo will end

up as plywood, floorboards and furniture around the world.

And some timber barons are beginning to realise the benefits of

branding their timber with the globally recognised Forest

Stewardship Council (FSC) certificate of approval.

"We are finally resigning ourselves to approaching the reality (of

FSC certification)," S.T. Mok, a former forestry department official

turned timber industry consultant, told Reuters.

Timber firms' re-think is driven by hard cash more than concerns

about distressed orang utans or disappearing cultures among

Sarawak's dozens of different indigenous peoples.

And their change of heart is unlikely to impress many of the Penan

and Iban forest dwellers protesting timber and plantation firms'

working in areas they say are their ancestral lands.

Hundreds of miles (km) to the west, across the South China Sea in

the capital Kuala Lumpur, talks on forest management have begun

between parties including loggers, government and indigenous

peoples' groups.

On the agenda is Malaysian adoption of globally recognised

certification under FSC, in place of a home-grown system.

Wood and woodland products carrying the FSC stamp must come from

forests managed according to benchmark environmental, social and

economic standards.

These include protecting the existing variety of animals and plants,

setting up sound management plans and - crucially for Sarawak -

improving the economic and social conditions of indigenous groups.

Tough times since Asia's 1997-1998 financial crisis, the

sleepwalking economy of former dream market Japan and cheap logs

from politically unstable Indonesia all helped change the tune.

Tropical timber prices are half their 1993 peak of around $300 per

cubic metre (yard).

"Ironically, the Asian financial crisis was a bit of a blessing. The

demand in China and Japan went down, they had to find new markets

and the main markets are in the U.S. and Europe," said Mok.

Barney Chan, general manager of the Sarawak Timber Association, is

hopeful of agreement on FSC standards but guarded about the market

benefits of certification.

Chan points to Malaysian exports of timber and timber products last

year, worth 12.2 billion ringgit ($3.2 billion) excluding furniture,

with just over half coming from his state.

Of the Sarawak component, some 142 million ringgit's worth went to

Europe and 253 million to the United States, where Chan said a "very

small" number of environment-sensitive customers wanted timber from

certified forests.

Mok said industry scepticism ignored potential demand from FSC

enthusiasts like the United States's Home Depot Inc and European

retail group Kingfisher , owner of home improvements and electricals

business B&Q.

"In the end, it's the mighty dollar that will influence the

decision," said Mok.

"What they do not know is the scale of the requirements of these big

department stores."

LAND RIGHTS THE ISSUE

But Malaysia's approach to certification has critics, who say the

process fails properly to address native land rights issues.

Raymond Abin is executive director of the Borneo Resources

Institute, one of 13 Malaysian non-governmental organisations (NGOs)

who recently boycotted further talks.

The NGOs complained of tokenism by authorities on land rights

issues, saying their repeated objections to the national system had

been ignored or left unresolved.

"If they move the way they are moving now, by totally neglecting the

land rights issues of the native communities, it would still be a

long way for them to go," Abin said.

He said land was at the heart of the debate, pointing to a High

Court victory indigenous groups won last May in state capital

Kuching.

"This case is the beginning of the challenge ahead of us," he said

of a decision barring a pulp company access to part of its

concession. The judgement also expanded the definition of native

ancestral land to include rivers, streams and communal forests.

Its final outcome, following an appeal by Borneo Pulp Plantation Sdn

Bhd and the state, may be a year or more away.

###RELAYED TEXT ENDS###

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