FSC-Watch

The timber may be certified: but is it sustainable?Tags: Cameroon, Brazil, Absence of national standards, All certifiers

The headline comes from a recent post on CIFOR's Forest Blog. CIFOR is the Centre for International Forestry Research. The blog post is based on research by one of CIFOR's scientists, Paolo Omar Cerutti, who was lead author of a recent paper published in Forest Policy and Economics: Legal vs...[Continue]

Ireland: 'Remove FSC accreditation from Irish Forestry Certification Initiative'Tags: Ireland, Absence of national standards, national initiatives

FSC-Watch has reported many times on the FSC credibility disaster that has been allowed to persist in Ireland for nearly a decade. Tellingly, despite the glaring failures, neither the FSC Secretariat, ASI, the international Board nor the national initiative itself have had to competence to put 'FSC Ireland' onto a credible path. Unsurprisingly, local NGOs are now totally exasperated. Even some parts of the private sector that entered the FSC process in good faith are now de-camping to PEFC instead...[Continue]

WWF and certification of Danzer: all a foregone conclusion?Tags: Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo, Absence of national standards, WWF

In September 2006, WWF and the large German tropical logging company Danzer issued the joint press release below, announcing Danzer’s intention to obtain FSC certification. The announcement stated that Danzer’s operations in the Republic of Congo were ‘scheduled’ to be certified in 2008, whilst the larger concessions in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) would be certified in 2010.

This is curious for several reasons. Firstly, it assumes that Danzer’s compliance with the FSC’s Principles and Criteria is a foregone conclusion, and merely a matter of ‘scheduling’ the certification...[Continue]