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. The statement, titled “Rainforest Alliance/SmartWood Response to WRM Allegations that Communities in Savannakhet, Laos are involved in Illegal Logging Allegations”, included the following two sentences:

“RA/SW will conduct a field audit of the community forestry operations in October 2006. As per standard RA/SW practice, upon audit completion, the results of this audit will be made available on our website.”

It is now January 2007, three months since the audit took place, and the results of the audit are not available on the Rainforest Alliance/SmartWood website (accessed 11 January 2007, 9:50 CET). Could you please inform me when the results of the audit will be made publicly available.

Incidentally, I note that you had previously posted the Rainforest Alliance/SmartWood response to my article and the Tropical Forest Trust response on the SmartWood website (these both now seem to have been removed from the SmartWood website). As you are aware, there have been several other statements about this certification – yet SmartWood posted only those responses that it agrees with. In the interests of an open discussion on the subject, in addition to my article(s), you could perhaps post the report that Tomas Jonsson wrote in May 2006 and Ben Hodgdon’s report on the World Bank-Finland SUFORD project. In case you have difficulty finding these reports, Jonsson’s is available here and Hodgdon’s here.

Please consider your response on-the-record. Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Chris Lang