Rainforest Alliance Smartwood

Colombia: Is the FSC Seal Applied to Blood-Stained Timber?

In March 2007, FSC-watch posted the ‘verdict’ of the Peoples’ Permanent Tribunal on the company Pizano SA, which had been FSC certified by SmartWood. The Peoples’ Permanent Tribunal had been investigating the environmental and social impacts of companies in Colombia. Here’s some more information about this FSC-certified company from Miguel Ángel Soto, Greenpeace Spain, and Tom Kuchartz, Ecologistas en Acción. This article was published in the World Rainforest Movement Bulletin 123, October 2007:

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SmartWood’s certification of TemRex criticised

Last month, SmartWood awarded an FSC certificate to TemRex’s industrial logging operations in Quebec, Canada. The certificate came with 26 outstanding “corrective action requests” (with which the company has to comply at some point in the future), 20 “observations” (which are voluntary) and 10 “notes for future auditors”.

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SmartWood misled US local authority over FSC timber

In the New Jersey town of Ocean City, controversy has been raging about the City Council’s planned use of more than a hundred thousand board feet of FSC-certified rainforest timber. The City Council is planning to use the Amazonian wood ipe (pronounced ‘ee-pay’) for a major renewal of its sea-front boardwalks. Many local people – supported by the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club – are opposed to the use of rainforest timber, and have been asking the City Council to use more environmentally acceptable alternatives. The City’s own Environmental Commission unanimously opposed the use of timber from the Amazon.

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Certification of Forestal Venao, Peru: another FSC credibility disaster, courtesy of SmartWood and WWF

Earlier this year, we reported that Rainforest Alliance SmartWood was in the process of consulting about whether it should start a new ‘Legality Verification’ scheme for timber. Ouropinion was that the Rainforest Alliance’s previous track-record of detecting illegality had been so dismal that there is no reason to believe that they are capable of identifying even gross breaches of the law. Now we have received information of yet another case where SmartWood appears to have ‘turned a blind eye’ to serious illegalities in one of the logging companies it has certified under the FSC scheme.

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‘Legality’, SmartWood-style

In his long and thoughtful comment to an earlier FSC-Watch posting on ‘Legality Verification’, Jeff Hayward, Lead Auditor for SmartWood, concluded by saying “we look forward to further inputs. We believe in a transparent consultation process; this is healthy and constructive.” In that spirit, FSC-Watch is hereby providing further, transparent, input.

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‘Non-existent’ indigenous people challenge WWF’s certified ‘model’ forest project, Komi, Russia

One of the several issues raised in our earlier posting on the FSC in Russia was the case of the ‘Komi Model Forest Project’, which is taking place in the Komi Republic, north-western Russia. The reports we have received below indicate that this project, which is used as a ‘model’ for certified forestry operations in European Russia, may be a model of what not to do, rather than one of good practice. It once again raises questions about the competence of SmartWood as an FSC-accredited certifier, and about WWF’s relationships with forestry companies.

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Hard-up certifier seeks job ‘on the side’

Up until a few years ago, FSC’s accredited certifiers were prohibited from certifying for other forest certification schemes, because of the obvious conflict of interest that this would represent. But, as has been the way of things in the FSC, such a ban represented an obstacle to the increase of the certifiers’ profits, and was therefore duly done away with. (One of the more bizarre justifications offered for this profound weakening of the FSC’s rules, from the now Chair of FSC’s Board, Grant Rosoman, was that, if the certifiers were prohibited from ‘moonlighting’ for other schemes, then they would simply set up nominally separate organisations to get around this rule. So much for the notion that FSC’s certifiers are required to work to the highest ethical standards…)

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FSC in Russia: ‘sustainable forest management’ or simply money and politics?

FSC-Watch has been sent the following article by Svetlana Alekseeva, Chief Editor of “Forest Certification”. It raises a number of serious questions about the motivation of various ‘stakeholders’ involved in FSC certifications in Russia.

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