Indigenous Peoples

Civil society organisations call on FSC to drop Samling Group

A coalition of civil society organisations have made a Policy for Association complaint demanding that the exclusion of the Samling Group from the Forest Stewardship Council. Samling’s logging operations are not FSC-certified, but the company holds three FSC chain of custody certificates.

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In denial: FSC’s response to the ARTE documentary

Two weeks ago, ARTE broadcast a documentary that was extremely critical of FSC. FSC responded with a statement on its website, and an 8-page “Fact check”. FSC’s response illustrates that the organisation is in denial about the problems within the FSC system.

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ARTE Documentary: IFO has deprived Indigenous People of their livelihoods in the Republic of Congo

For the recent documentary “Who is Protecting our Forests?”, ARTE’s journalists Manfred Ladwig and Thomas Reutter visit Industrie Forestière de Ouesso’s Ngombé logging concession in the Republic of Congo. The concession covers more than one million hectares, all of which is FSC-certified, according to the documentary.[1] IFO is part of Danzer GmbH, a company registered in Switzerland.

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ARTE journalists’ visit to CIB’s concession in the Republic of Congo

This is the second post in a series based on ARTE’s documentary about FSC: “The exploitation of primary forests: Can an ecolabel stop the forest industry?”

The documentary was available online with English subtitles until 23 October 2018. It is available here (also in German).

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New documentary slams FSC: “The eco-label could not slow down the forest industry”

ARTE, the European TV channel, broadcast a new documentary about FSC this week. It’s available on Das Erste website in German: “Die Ausbeutung der Urwälder: Kann ein Öko-Siegel die Forstindustrie stoppen?” – The exploitation of primary forests: Can an ecolabel stop the forest industry?

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A new film exposing FSC: ‘Sustainable on Paper’

A new film documents the problems with FSC. FSC-Watch will be posting several articles about this over the next few days. Meanwhile, here is FERN’s description of the film in EU Forest Watch, January 2011. Below that is a trailer for the film.


UPDATE: The full documentary is available here.


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Thousands of Indigenous People evicted from FSC-certified Mount Elgon National Park, Uganda

In 2007, SGS Qualifor certified Mount Elgon National Park as “well managed” under the FSC system. Accreditation Services International found that SGS Qualifor’s certification was based on hoped for future improvements, rather than what was actually happening in the National Park. ASI, however, failed to take any meaningful action against SGS Qualifor.

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