Earlier this month FSC-Watch wrote about a new report from Earthsight about illegal logging in Ukraine. Earthsights’ 18-month-long investigation revealed that IKEA is selling chairs made from beech wood that was illegally logged in the Ukrainian Carpathians. And the timber is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.
Earthsight recently published the results of an 18-month long investigation into illegal logging in Ukraine. Earthsight’s report reveals that IKEA is selling chairs made from beech wood that was illegally logged in the Ukrainian Carpathians. IKEA products involved include the Terje chair and the Ingolf dining chair.
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.
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.
This is the third post in a series based on ARTE’s documentary about FSC: “The exploitation of primary forests: Can an ecolabel stop the forest industry?”
Unfortunately, the documentary is not available on ARTE’s website after 23 October 2018, but it is available here (also in German and Spanish).
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?
Last week at Manchester Magistrates Court a timber company called Hardwood Dimensions (Holdings) Ltd was found to be in breach of regulations prohibiting the import and sale of illegally harvested timber.
In November 2015, WWF Germany filed a formal complaint with FSC against the Austrian-based company Holzindustrie Schweighofer – the largest forest products company in Romania. The complaint followed a series of undercover investigations by the Environmental Investigation Agency and an article in Germany’s Spiegel magazine.
Two-thirds of the last old-growth forests in Europe are in Romania. Unfortunately, Romania’s forests are under threat from rampant illegal logging. And by failing to kick out companies involved in this illegal logging, the Forest Stewardship Council is complicit in this destruction.
On November 24th, according to a report in the Peruvian newspaper La Republica, police raided the docks in the Amazon port of Iquitos, confiscating the equivalent of 60 heavy truck-loads of timber. The wood, worth around $0.5m, was bound for Mexico and the US – and reportedly 80% of it was owned by the FSC certified company, Inversiones La Oroza SRL. (Posting amended 10/12/15)
FSC-Watch 