On 13 March 2008, SGS Qualifor awarded an FSC certificate for Veracel’s monoculture eucalyptus plantations in Bahia, Brazil. WRM announced that this was FSC’s “Death Certificate”.
Author: Chris Lang
The scandal of Asia Plywood Company in Sarawak, Wickes, B&Q, SCS and FSC
B&Q and Wickes, two of Britain’s biggest DIY stores, have been caught selling plywood falsely labelled as FSC certified.
Oxfam report: 22,500 people evicted to make way for FSC certified plantations in Uganda
On 22 September 2011, Oxfam released a report about a UK-based company called New Forests. Oxfam’s researchers visited the company’s plantations in Uganda and found that more than 22,000 people were kicked off the land to make way for the company’s monocultures. Oxfam made public what FSC’s certifying body, SGS, had somehow managed to ignore for the past two years. Accreditation Services International (ASI) in turn found out nothing about the evictions when it carried out an audit of SGS in 2010. New Forests Company has put out a statement explaining that it “takes Oxfam’s allegations extremely seriously and will conduct an immediate and thorough investigation”.
The timber may be certified: but is it sustainable?
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. certified timber: Preliminary impacts of forest certification in Cameroon.
Clear-cuts for Ecotimber – more criticism of FSC, this time on German TV
On 14 February 2010, SWR, a German TV station broadcast a short film about FSC certification of clearcuts in Sweden.
“Latvia’s pulp fiction”: AlJazeera programme on FSC and destructive logging in Latvia
A programme this week on AlJazeera’s People and Power reports on destructive logging in Latvia – including the fact that FSC-certified Latvian timber is still on sale in the UK, despite the fact that the FSC certified was suspended on 16 July 2010.
Uruguay: Tree plantation workers and agrotoxic spraying
A new report, published jointly by Rap-Al Uruguay and Rel-UITA looks at tree plantation workers and agrotoxic spraying. The research was carried out on plantations operated by FOSA (Forestal Oriental S.A.), a transnational company that is owned by UPM (formerly Botnia) and which is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
FSC certified company, Hancock, caught on film converting forest to plantations in the Strzezlicki Ranges, Australia
A new video about the Strzezlicki Ranges in Victoria, Australia reveals that FSC is failing to uphold its own standards, allowing destructive logging and conversion of native forest to exotic plantations.
Swedish Society for Nature Conservation resigns from FSC Sweden
In June 2010, Swedish Society for Nature Conservation resigned from FSC Sweden. Two years ago, the SSNC left the board of FSC Sweden. As the largest environmental organisation in Sweden, SSNC’s resignation raises serious questions about the ability of FSC to implement its own standards.
Armed security force of FSC-certified company kills villager in Brazil
Two years ago, a peasant was murdered by guards of the company Vallourec and Mannesman in Brazil. At the time, V&M’s plantations were certified for FSC by SGS-Qualifor.
FSC-Watch 