WRM
Press Release on Open Letter to FSC Members
3 November 2008
Forest
Stewardship Council meeting in South Africa
NGOs call on FSC to stop certifying tree plantations
The General Assembly of the
Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is meeting in Cape Town, South
Africa, from 3-7 November. Coinciding with the opening of the
event, an open letter is being distributed to FSC members, calling
on the FSC “to urgently resolve the serious problem of FSC
certification of monoculture tree plantations.”
Wally Menne, from the South
African Timberwatch Coalition explains that “the Forest
Stewardship Council was created for the certification of forests.
Plantations have nothing in common with forests and should have
therefore never been within the mandate of the FSC. The time has
come for the FSC to decide to stop certifying them.”
Another South African activist–Philip
Owen from Geasphere- adds that “timber plantations have
resulted in the depletion of scarce water resources, making them
prone to devastating fires such as those recently experienced
in South Africa and Swaziland, with the result of a number of
people dead or homeless.” “Those plantations –he
emphasises- were FSC certified!”
“By certifying these
plantations, the FSC is strengthening large timber companies –that
are members of the FSC- and weakening local peoples’ struggles
to protect their land and resources”, says Marcelo Calazans
from the Brazilian NGO FASE, adding that “by certifying
these plantations, the FSC label has totally lost its credibility.”
After fires ravaged the Pigg’s
Peak area in Swaziland, Nhlanhla Msweli from GeaSphere Swaziland
commented: “Our experience is that plantations have not
benefited local communities - instead they have brought pain and
servitude”. He summed up the situation expressing that “we
can link timber plantations to the poverty that is experienced
on the ground, evicting people from their land is fatal, paying
them peanuts is exploitation, not being environmentally responsibly
is wrong, and not taking any responsibility for damages done on
the environment is not being concerned at all.”
Nathalia Bonilla, from Accion
Ecologica in Ecuador, expresses “frustration, because in
spite of all the documented evidence about their negative social
and environmental impacts, the FACE-PROFAFOR and Endesa/Botrosa
plantations are still FSC certified.” She adds that “the
certification company GFA is now in Ecuador assessing Endesa/Botrosa’s
plantations. We fear that the opinion of local communities will
not be taken into account and that the company will be able to
continue its destructive activities under FSC’s ‘green’
label.”
“For many years we have
been documenting the impacts of monoculture tree plantations and
publishing detailed studies on a large range of countries (Brazil,
Cambodia, Chile, Ecuador, Indonesia, Uganda, Uruguay, South Africa,
Swaziland, Thailand and others). Instead of learning lessons from
them, the FSC chose to ignore the evidence and has continued to
certify uncertifiable plantations,” explains Ricardo Carrere
of the World Rainforest Movement.
The open letter, signed by
over 3600 organizations and individuals from all over the world,
calls “on those FSC members who share with us the desire
to protect local peoples and Nature from the damage caused by
the expansion of tree plantations to raise their voices at the
upcoming general assembly and to help bring about the change that
is needed.”
The urgency of that change
is expressed in the letter by stating that “The time has
now arrived for FSC members –particularly from the social
and environmental chambers- to take sides: to continue to allow
business as usual, or to fight for change; to protect the interests
of large pulp and timber corporations or the rights of local peoples
and Nature; to carry on accepting that plantations are a “type
of forest” or to agree that they have nothing in common
with them; to greenwash a most harmful land-use, or to oppose
social and environmental destruction.”
Contact persons for further
information:
In South Africa
Wally Menne, Timberwatch Coalition, wally_m@iafrica.com, Tel:
+27 (0) 82 4442083, Skype: wally.menne
International
Ricardo Carrere, World Rainforest Movement, rcarrere@wrm.org.uy,
Tel 598 2 4132989 – 598 2 4100985
The open letter and signatories
are available at: http://www.wrm.org.uy/actors/FSC/Assembly.html#letter
