PRESS RELEASE BY THE ASOCIATION FOR THE DEFENCE OF THE
RIA
REQUEST TO ORGANIZATIONS OF THE ECOLOGIST
MOVEMENTS OF THE STATE TO ABANDON THEIR SUPPORT TO FSC
Over the past few years, various certifications granted by the
Forest Stewardship Council in Europe and Latin America have been
strongly contested by environmental and human rights defence organizations.
It has been proven that large tracts of monoculture tree plantations
managed in an absolutely unsustainable way have been certified,
leading to poverty in scantly developed areas and on occasions
to the eviction of the indigenous populations who occupied these
territories. The forestation companies’ greed would seem
to know no limits and relies on the complicity of certifying firms
who make more efforts in their audits to camouflage the more negative
aspects of forestry management of those requesting the seal than
to study their compliance with certification standards. The result
is a business that provides an opportunity for juicy benefits
to be obtained both by certifiers that collect from their auditing
and certificates that improve the forestation companies’
market position.
However, while certification of monoculture tree plantations multiplies,
protests and complaints against them have also multiplied all
over the world. And this is because FSC - which had up till then
counted on the support of the ecologist movement and which undoubtedly
played a valuable role in reducing environmental damage associated
with logging in tropical countries - now protects under its seal
mono-specific plantations all over the world of more than doubtful
environmental, economic and social sustainability.
The complaints against the activities of ENCE’s forestry
branches in Galicia and Uruguay (NORFOR and EUFORES) have made
clear that in fact certified management systems are far from complying
with the 10 principles that guarantee sustainability and permit
the granting of the Forestry Stewardship Council’s seal.
As in the case of other companies in different parts of the world,
they have been certified in an irregular way.
It is for this
reason that the Asociación pola defensa da Ría,
de Pontevedra (Association for the defence of the Ria), Pontevedra
that maintains a claim against certification of the ENCE forestry
branch in Galicia and that follows with concern the activities
of the branch in Uruguay (also certified) has taken the initiative
to request organizations that are critical of the present operation
of FSC in its certification of plantations and who are still supporting
the seal, to stop this support while there is no guarantee that
all the certifications granted by FSC respond to management systems
complying with the principles and criteria that have been established
for their concession. , Thus, the Galician ecologist movement
gathered in the Galician Ecologist Federation, the Galician group
of Ecologists in Action, ERVA, the World Rainforest Movement (WRM)
and the Latin American Network against Monoculture Tree Plantations,
present in 16 Latin American countries, request that support of
FSC should be abandoned by the state groups that still maintain
it (GREENPEACE, WWF-ADENA, Ecologists in Action, Amigos de la
Tierra y and the Spanish Ornithological Society).
Pontevedra, 17 July 2006
By the Association for the defence of the Ria, Benito Andrade
(34) 636281252, bandrade@mundo-r.com
