Geasphere the NGO working in South Africa, Mozambique and Swaziland dedicated to the protection of ecological integrity, has released a new short video explaining why FSC's certification of plantations in South Africa are in clear contravention of the FSC's Principles and Criteria, and how the P&C themselves are defective in ensuring that FSC certifed timber is "environmentally appropriate".
Taking us on a tour of some of the South African landscapes devastated by industrial plantations, the video explains how FSC's Principle 10 is inadequate to ensure that certified plantations are not responsible for destruction of non-forest ecosystem, such as grasslands, even if these are more biodiverse than local forests...[Continue]
The following press release has been issed by South Africa-based NGO, Geasphere
The decision by the FSC Complaints Panel not to uphold the complaint against the mass slaughter of wildlife in certified plantations in South Africa appears to mean that the FSC's complaint procedure, though recently revised, maintains its 100% record of never having resulted in the cancellation of a certificate as a result of a formal complaint.
In response to yet another whitewashing job by the FSC Complaints Process, Geasphere has written a letter to the FSC setting out in detail why the process was seriously flawed - both in terms of the specifics of this case as well as general failures of the complaints procedures...[Continue]
On the eve of its 2011 General Assembly, FSC is facing a barrage of criticism as a result of failing to deal with the multiple problems that it has been presented with over the last decade. The growing sense amongst members, and especially NGOs, is that time has run out. Another of FSC's key NGO supporters has already recently quit.
This is the first in a series of special postings that will appear in the run-up to the Assembly. The article originally appeared in "All Africa".
Hilaire Avril 8 June 2011
Paris - "Eco-label fatigue" is setting in as green logging certification schemes are undermining proper government management of forest resources while "greenwashing" private ownership of these public resources, critics say...[Continue]
Almost 2,000 baboons have been killed in the past two years by FSC-certified plantation companies in South Africa. Below is a press release from GeaSphere about a formal complaint submitted to FSC this week about the killings.
Stop the killing’ of baboons in the mountains of Mpumalanga, South Africa!
The environmental pressure group GeaSphere submitted a formal complaint to the FSC – Forest Stewardship Council – on Tuesday, 11 January 2011.
At least 1,914 baboons had been ‘removed’ by a controversial ‘trap and shoot’ method by FSC Certified plantation companies during the past two years...[Continue]
FSC-Watch received this from Wally Menne, a member of Timberwatch in South Africa, questioning what, exactly, FSC is celebrating on "FSC Friday":
FSC 'Frosty' Friday also World Eco-debt Day
The FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) has declared today "FSC FRIDAY" as part of a campaign to boost its reputation in the face of growing criticism of its 'greenwashing' of unsustainable logging of the world's rapidly diminishing forests, as well as its efforts to certify vast new areas of socially and ecologically destructive tree plantations as "responsibly managed forests"! (see www.fsc-watch.org)
It is abundantly clear that the driving force behind the environmental plagues troubling humanity - in particular Climate Change - is little more than old fashioned greed, manifesting itself in the form of the gross overconsumption of energy and material goods by the wealthy of the world...[Continue]
In November 2008, just before the FSC General Assembly, Global Forest Coalition released a report criticising plantation certification in South Africa. The report's authors, Wally Menne and Blessing Karumbidza of The Timberwatch Coalition, asked the question "Can the FSC forest certification model be used to demonstrate sustainability in large-scale agrofuel crop production?" Their answer is a resounding "no".
The report looks in detail at the FSC certification of the industrial tree plantations belonging to the company Hans Merensky Holdings and its subsidiary Singisi Forest Products, which have been FSC certified since 2002 by SGS Qualifor...[Continue]
More than 3,600 organisations and individuals have signed on to World Rainforest Movement's letter to FSC members demanding that FSC should stop certifying industrial tree plantations. FSC-Watch looks forward to seeing FSC's response to the letter - preferably a decision to stop certifying environmentally and socially destructive monocultures. Today, WRM released the following press release:
WRM Press release, 3 November 2008
Forest Stewardship Council meeting in South Africa
NGOs call on FSC to stop certifying tree plantations
The General Assembly of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, from 3-7 November...[Continue]
This month's World Rainforest Movement Bulletin focusses on the International Day Against Monoculture Tree Plantations on 21 September. The Bulletin explains why a campaign against industrial tree plantations is important, includes materials for campaigns as well as news and analysis from around the world about struggles against plantations.
One article looks at FSC's record in certifying of plantations. If FSC is to take its own standards seriously, it must stop certifying monoculture tree plantations (a fully referenced version of this article is available here):
FSC: Stop certifying monoculture tree plantations!
By Chris Lang...[Continue]
FSC's forthcoming 3-yearly General Assembly in Cape Town, South Africa, looks like it will be a farcical exercise in corporate-sponsored public relations, whilst the disparity between what the organisation likes to think it is doing and what it is actually doing continues to grow.
Nothing illustrates FSC's absurd self-deception better than the field trip planned for the pleasure of assembly participants. FSC's invite to this promises that "FSC has organized a field trip to one of the most beautiful nature reserves near Cape Town - the Jonkershoek Nature Reserve...[Continue]
In the following contribution, Philip Owen of Southern African NGO GeaSphere, reports on the ecological devastation caused by the FSC certified industrial plantations in South Africa. The article illustrates the problems in one particular site, certified by the 'Soil Association' WoodMark, which overall has certified nearly 500,000 hectares of plantations in South Africa. Readers will not miss the irony that one of the major impacts has been on the soils of the region, and will no doubt question how such an operation could be certified by an organisation which purports to be concerned with the conservation of the world's soil...[Continue]
Services
Search this site