March
2008
FSC announced
that its Accreditation Services (ASI) would be "conducting
a Forest [sic] Management surveillance audit of SGS at Veracel in
Brazil between the 26th-28th of March 2008?. Within the framework
of the evaulation process, the Social Environmental Forum of the
Extreme South of Bahia was invited to take part in the Evaluation
process, below their answer:
Also
available in Portuguese
To Mr. André
de Freitas,
Cc.: FSC-Brasil/FSC-Internacional
We received your letter and already socialized that with our partners
in the Social and Environmental Forum of the Extreme South of Bahia
and discussed about the issue of our participation in this process.
We decided together not to participate in this audit, nor as observers,
neither by means of a meeting/conversation with the auditors team,
once we evaluate that this effort makes no sense because the pulp
company Veracel just got the FSC-certificate in 13/03/2008, according
to a message of Mr. Azanbuja of SGS sent by email from 18/03/2008,
coincidently on the same day as we received your invitation for
us to participate in the audit.
We are not willing participate once more in a 'teatre', as happened
in 2006, when FSC also decided to carry out an audit in relation
to the certification of Suzano/Bahia Sul, that also had received
the FSC-certificate then. At that time, we met with the audit team
in Teixeira de Freitas, we told them about the situation, we responded
to the report but nothing happened. What got left was our word against
their word. So we concluded that an audit under these conditions
is a mere formality for the FSC and for us, civil society, a loss
of time and energy.
This time we were willing to sit down with your team, imagining
that FSC, by carrying out an audit before the emission of the certificate,
had the intention to prevent Veracel Celulose from certification,
something that could give back to the FSC something of its credibility
so negatively affected by having authorized the certification of
millions of hectares of companies monocultures in the world as being
socially just, environmentally adequate and economically viable.
We also understand the strategy of SGS in providing the seal before
the audit as a way of complicating the audit and to guarantee the
commitment assumed with the Veracel company. Therefore, we refuse
to be part of this play,
Yours sincerely,
The Social and Environmental Forum of the Extreme South
of Bahia.
