USA

The appointment of Steven Strauss to FSC’s “expert” panel reveals the pro-GE agenda of FSC’s learning process on GE trees

By Chris Lang

One year ago, the Forest Stewardship Council launched a “learning process on genetic engineering in forestry outside of FSC-certified area”. According to FSC, the aim of this “learning process” is “for FSC and its members to gain sufficient and trusted knowledge on developments in genetic engineering in forestry”. But FSC has appointed a panel of “experts” whose members have very little expertise in either genetic engineering or forest ecology, with one notable exception: Professor Steven Strauss of Oregon State University.

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Forestry Company Faces Challenge to Its “Responsible Timber” Certification After Waging Intimidation Campaign Against Local Community

By Water for Citizens of Weed, CA 27 February 2019

WEED, CALIFORNIA – Citizens of Weed, California filed a complaint today with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) after Oregon-based Roseburg Forest Products refused to stop its abusive tactics in a bid to privatize the community’s main source of drinking water.

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ARTE Documentary: Bozovich and the scandal of “controlled wood” in Peru. FSC is “no guarantee of legality”

For the recent documentary “Who is Protecting our Forests?”, ARTE journalists Manfred Ladwig and Thomas Reutter visit the operations of Bozovich Timber Products, an FSC-certified logging company. The company is supported by the German government.

The journalists ask whether the chain of custody is better monitored in Peru than in Cambodia and Vietnam.

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Guest Post: How FSC is helping to greenwash the destruction of US forests for European power stations

Almuth Ernsting is co-director of Biofuelwatch, an NGO that works “to raise awareness of the negative impacts of industrial biofuels and bioenergy on biodiversity, human rights, food sovereignty and climate change”. She contributed this guest post to FSC-Watch.

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Gibson Guitars: where have all the fleas come from?

In one of the political blogs still commenting on the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s second raid on Gibson Guitars for possible contraventions of the Lacey Act, Republican pundit Andrew M. Langer, berating Gibson for “consorting with environmentalists”, refers to an old saying that “if you lie down with dogs be prepared to get up with fleas”. He adds that “Apparently if you lie down with environmentalists you should be prepared to get raided by the Feds.”

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Gibson Guitars fiasco raises new questions about integrity of Rainforest Alliance

The raiding of Gibson Guitars in Tennessee in August by US Federal Fish and Wildlife officials for suspected violations of the Lacey Act – which forbids US companies from importing wood obtained from illegal sources – has once again cast a very hard light on the FSC system, and in particular on the Rainforest Alliance, whose SmartWood scheme is the FSC’s most prolific issuer of FSC certificates. An October 2nd article (which we reproduce in full below), published in the ‘Tennessean’ newspaper, has opened new revelations about the relationship between Gibson and the Alliance, which sound loud alarm bells about the ‘independence’ of the certifier.

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FSC’s mysterious disappearing certificates, #1: Massachusetts state forests

FSC-Watch has several times in the last eighteen months reported on the FSC-certified ‘chainsaw massacre’ taking place in the state forest lands of Massachusetts, USA. Managed by the state’s Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), 285,000 acreas of forest had been certified by California-based Scientific Certification Systems Inc (SCS) since 2004.

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