|
| PEFC Council Position Paper for Governments who will be present at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), Johannesburg, August
Illegal Logging and Forest Certification
It is agreed that illegal logging is bad. Countries, their governments and all other stakeholders, advertently or inadvertently involved in the trade of illegally logged material must do more to stop this scourge on the forestry sector.
One important way to combat illegal logging is for governments to promote sustainable development in their own country. This can be achieved by pressing on with the intergovernmental processes to promote sustainable forest management (SFM), which grew out of Rio. Through these processes, standards can be developed in each country on earth involving all stakeholders at national and local level. These standards are being developed in multi-stakeholder processes and can then be implemented in each country through a delivery mechanism called forest certification.
It is government?s job to deliver, through the intergovernmental processes, the mutually recognized criteria and indicators and performance levels, which are then developed by all stakeholders nationally into forest management standards. It is the certification body?s job to provide assurances that SFM is delivered on the ground. These two processes, public policy development and private delivery mechanisms should not be mixed to avoid conflicts of interest.
In addition, all delivery mechanisms should themselves be subject to internationally agreed checking procedures - such as that provided through accreditation by members of the International Accreditation Forum. In this way all the processes and delivery mechanisms can ensure mutual recognition and help combat illegal logging.
Rio Successes Downplayed
It is encouraging to note that the greatest share of the world?s certified forest area is delivered through independent national forest certification schemes developed on the back of the intergovernmental processes on Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management which grew out of Rio.
It is also encouraging that many of the independent, multi-stakeholder developed, national forest certification schemes around the world have moved in increasing numbers towards mutual recognition. This facilitates the global trade of timber and at the same time ensures respect for the supremacy of the intergovernmental processes which grew out of Rio, as the basis for such certification schemes.
Unfortunately some pressure groups seem to have a blind spot to this achievement and are pushing the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) scheme along with its principles and criteria developed outside the intergovernmental processes, as the only benchmark, which will ensure "legality". They are pushing a private scheme, which incorporates both policy making on SFM and its delivery mechanism.
What in effect these same pressure groups are demanding from the 149 countries1 involved in the 9 intergovernmental processes which grew out of Rio, covering 85% of the world?s forests, is to effectively abandon the work they have been doing for the last 10 years and to accept point blank a private organization?s own principles and criteria, developed outside the intergovernmental processes for SFM, as the international benchmark.
The Trojan horse
It makes sense for governments to stipulate in their timber procurement policy that timber should come from sustainably managed forests, and that certification based on the intergovernmental processes is one tool which can be used to provide proof of this.
It is however politically inadvisable to name any private delivery scheme as the benchmark. Either government?s should state the evaluation mechanism that is used to assess if a scheme provides proof of SFM, or they should publicize the results of their assessment mechanism and keep a publicly available list of all the schemes and other mechanisms that meet the SFM requirements. All Governments should also give preference to certification schemes based on the intergovernmental processes for the promotion of SFM.
To use a "Trojan horse" statement like "FSC or equivalent" in public procurement policies2, as is advocated by some pressure groups, is politically inadvisable for the following reasons:
It implies that FSC is the best, of which there is no proof, and thereby the "sine qua non" judge for all systems and criteria and indicators, a position, which surely must be unacceptable for all sovereign governments.
It places an NGO above governments as it allows FSC to decide what constitutes sustainable forest management and governments de facto delegate their responsibilities in this important area of sustainable development. The only recourse a government would have if FSC did something it didn?t like is to remove FSC from its procurement policy and then list what it, Government requires form service providers. Hence it is a more logical course of action for Governments to state this from the start and maintain their political responsibility for the important area of SFM.
It places a non-governmental process over and above all the other intergovernmental processes supported by 149 countries. The statement implies that certification schemes or other mechanisms developed to these intergovernmental processes are not good enough for the government. It requires further proof that a certification scheme meets the FSC requirements. Where does this leave the intergovernmental processes and the thousands of stakeholders working to develop them further? Also, what does it say about the status of other processes and mechanisms through which governments promote SFM in their countries?
It implies that Governments cannot be trusted, or don?t trust themselves to develop criteria and indicators for SFM through their regional intergovernmental political processes since FSC is the benchmark. It is interesting to note here the implied neo-colonialist attitude against countries with tropical forests highlighted by a recent Greenpeace press release3 which stated "In particular industrialized countries as the main recipients of tropical wood must enact existing legal treaties such as the Convention for Biological Diversity (CBD) and must support the FSC Initiative for sustainable forest management"
Advocating "FSC or equivalent" in any official document, is dangerous because it establishes one scheme and it principles and criteria as the benchmark and obtains legitimacy for this attempt through an innocently worded government procurement policy or policy statement.
Governments should not inadvertently undermine their own political processes they themselves support, to promote sustainable forest management, by making references to any one scheme in their procurement policies. Instead, Governments should use the occasion of the WSSD to reaffirm their commitment to sustainable forest management through their intergovernmental processes, which are delivering tangible results.
PEFC Council asbl, 17 Rue des Girondins, L-1626 Hollerich, LUXEMBOURG
Tel: +352 26 25 90 59, Fax: +352 26 25 92 58, Email: pefc@pt.lu, WebPage: www.pefc.org
|
