Rainforest Alliance Smartwood

Colombia: FSC-certified companies accused of ‘destroying rainforests, polluting water sources, disinformation, profound damage’

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.)

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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.

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The FSC, Panamanian teak plantations, and the mafia

SmartWood’s certificate for plantation outfit Prime Forestry Panama was suspended in May 2006, but SmartWood noted at the time that:

“From February 2003 to September 2005, SmartWood carried out 5 on-site audits of Prime Forestry Panama (August 2003, April and September 2004, March and Sept 2005). Through these audits PFP provided evidence that nonconformances were being addressed and demonstrated ongoing compliance with SmartWood and FSC certification requirements.”

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Laos: SmartWood certifies “village forestry”

In June 2006, I received a leaked report written by a consultant to a World Bank- Finnish government-funded “village forestry” project in Laos. About 50,000 hectares of the project area had been certified by SmartWood in January 2006. The report documented serious breaches of FSC principles and criteria, particularly the fact that the consultant found that logs were not marked properly. “Tracing and chain of custody of trees/logs is therefore impossible,” commented the consultant.

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Aracruz, SmartWood, FSC and a conflict of interest

In 2003, Brazil’s Aracruz bought Klabin’s Riocell pulp operations in Rio Grande do Sul. The 400,000 tonnes a year pulp mill came with 40,000 hectares of FSC-certified plantations.

Aracruz is among the most controversial pulp companies in the world. It has an ongoing dispute with indigenous people and quilombolas in Espirito Santo province. The company is currently carrying out a racist campaign aiming to turn the population of Espirito Santo against the indigenous people. The working conditions in its plantations are terrible.

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Uruguay: FSC cannot guarantee peace of mind

In July 2006, FSC put out a statement in response to World Rainforest Movement’s publication “Greenwash: Critical analysis of FSC certification of industrial tree monocultures in Uruguay“.

FSC’s statement is titled, “FSC guarantees peace of mind to consumers”. FSC based its statement on responses from the two certifying bodies involved, SmartWood and SGS.

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Laos: FSC certified timber is illegal

By Chris Lang. Published in WRM Bulletin 110, September 2006.

When a forestry operation is certified under the Forest Stewardship Council system, it should mean we can all relax in the knowledge that the forests are reasonably well managed. Unfortunately, it seems, this is not the case. SmartWood, an FSC accredited certifier, recentlyforestry operations forestry operations in Laos which are producing timber that is illegal under the Lao Forestry Law.

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