FSC-Watch has received the following communication* from Rede Alerta Contra o Deserto Verde (Action Network Against Green Deserts), Brazil, concerning the shooting dead of a local peasant by the armed guards of Vallourec Mannesman, a eucalyptus plantation company in Minas Gerais state, Brazil, certified for the FSC by SGS.
Below the communication from Green Deserts is an article from Red Pepper magazine from 2006 which describes some of the context of this new FSC-certified atrocity...[Continue]
FSC-Watch has previously reported on the highly controversial certification of Wijma, a company logging in the rainforests of Cameroon which the independent observer of forests in that country has repeatedly found to be involved in illegalities.
The certification has now led to the suspension of Wijma's certifer, Bureau Veritas (formerly Eurocertifor). We have been asked to post the following article, which is submitted by Danielle van Oijen, Forest Campaigner, Milieudefensie / Friends of The Earth Netherlands...[Continue]
A couple of weeks ago, FSC-Watch received this email from Wally Menne of TimberWatch in South Africa. It raises an interesting point - the FSC International Secretariat produces almost exclusively good news, no matter what is happening in the outside world. So far, Wally has not received either a reply or an acknowledgment of his email. We will, of course, be happy to post FSC's response when it appears.
FSC-Watch recently received this update on the PNG Eco-Forestry Forum's complaint to FSC over the Smartwood certification of Rimbunan Hijau subsidiary, Ernslaw One:
UPDATE: FSC Certification of Rimbunan Hijau in New Zealand/Aotearoa
In 2004 the Papua New Guinea Eco-Forestry Forum ("The Forum") instigated complaints against the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification of the plantation management operations of Malaysian logging giant Rimbunan Hijau (RH) in New Zealand...[Continue]
SmartWood's Richard Donovan sent this response to my email dated 11 January 2006. This is not the audit report, as Donovan promised by 22 January 2006 in his response to my email. "Review of our final audit report draft is still underway in Laos," Donovan says in yesterday's statement (below)...[Continue]
Under the project, which is funded by a Dutch organisation called the FACE Foundation, trees are planted to absorb carbon and the carbon is sold to people who want to offset their carbon emissions through flying...[Continue]
It was announced today that FSC’s largest certificate for tropical forest management, had been suspended. The certificate, issued by SGS-Qualifor to the Barama company, the Guyanese subsidiary of the controversial Malaysian-based logging transnational, Samling, was put on hold following an investigation by the FSC’s Accreditation Service International (ASI) in November 2006.
Subject: FSC in Laos Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 09:52:45 +0100 From: Chris Lang To: Richard Donovan (Rainforest Alliance/SmartWood) CC: smartwood@....id, FSC-Watch, Ricardo Carrere (WRM)
Dear Mr Donovan,
On 2 October 2006, you and Loy Jones (Asia Pacific Regional Manager, Rainforest Alliance/SmartWood) issued a statement about an article I'd written for the World Rainforest Movement...[Continue]
Since 1994, a Dutch organisation called the FACE Foundation has been planting trees in Mount Elgon National Park in Uganda. The FACE Foundation aims to sell carbon credits based on the amount of carbon stored in the trees planted. FACE aims to plant a total of 25,000 hectares of which 8,500 hectares has been planted.
In Uganda, the FACE Foundation works with the Ugandan Wildlife Authority (UWA), the organisation responsible for managing Uganda's National Parks.
In March 2002, SGS Qualifor certified the UWA-FACE project under the FSC system...[Continue]
As with the development of many other FSC policies, the finalisation of its policy on the use of pesticides has been long and complicated. But at least it seemed to have come to a fairly clear result, when a new policy, and clear guidelines for implementing it, were adopted by the FSC Board at the end of 2005. But this has again all been thrown into doubt, following the most recent FSC Board meeting, which was attended and heavily lobbied by an industry delegation.
Under the rules established in 2005, substances that are defined as ‘highly hazardous’ are ‘banned’ from use in FSC-certified forests...[Continue]
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