The Peoples’ Permanent Tribunal* which has been investigating the social and environmental impacts of companies in Colombia, has recently heard evidence against a number of companies, including two that are certified by the FSC: Smurfit Kapa Cartón de Colombia and Pizano SA. (Smurfit was certified for FSC by SGS Qualifor; in contravention of FSC’s requirements, there was no information about this certificate available on SGS’s website at the date of this posting. Pizano was certified by SmartWood.)
Brazil: V&M ‘withdraws’ from FSC
On March 1st, FSC-Watch reported on the murder of a peasant by guards of the company Vallourec and Mannesman, which was certified for the FSC by SGS-Qualifor.
On 15th March, the company released the announcement below, in Portuguese, communicating “its voluntary decision to leave the FSC after 8 years of very close relationship”. The reason the company gives in the release is that it does not agree with the way the audit was carried out by the certifying body (SGS).
FSC-certified Coillte, Ireland: “environmentally destructive, rapacious”
The following letter recently appeared in the Irish newspaper, the Examiner.
It paints a disturbing picture of the environmental impact of the FSC-certified state forestry company, Coillte, which controls around 400,000 hectares of land in Ireland. FSC-Watch has reported on Coillte several times in the past – but the certificate remains as a stain on FSC’s credibility.
Sweden – “major violations against the FSC standard”
Launching an appeal to help save Sweden’s remaining old-growth forests, the NGO networkSkydda Skogen (Protect the Forest) has said that “major violations against the FSC standard are made by FSC-certified forest companies in Sweden.” In its website, Skydda Skogen goes on to say:
Peasant murdered by employees of FSC certfied plantation company, Brazil
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.
Bureau Veritas accreditation suspended in Cameroon
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.
See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil
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.
Update on complaint to FSC about SmartWood certification of Rimbunan Hijau subsidiary
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:
Response from SmartWood re Laos
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). I’ll wait for the final audit to be published before commenting further.
Human rights abuses, land conflicts, broken promises – the reality of carbon ‘offset’ projects in Uganda
World Rainforest Movement recently published a report I wrote with Timothy Byakola of the Ugandan NGO Climate Development Initiatives, about an FSC-certified carbon sink project at Mount Elgon in Uganda. The report, “‘A funny place to store carbon’: UWA-FACE Foundation’s tree planting project in Mount Elgon National Park, Uganda”, includes a section on the SGS-Qualifor certification of the project.
FSC-Watch 