Certifying the Uncertifiable.
FSC Certification of Tree Plantations in Thailand and Brazil
World
Rainforest Movement - August 2003
Concern over the spread
of tree monocultures and their certification is at the centre of this
book. However, this concern is merely one part of much broader concerns
concerning forests, forest peoples’ livelihoods and communities
of living things.
Forests perform a number
of functions which are vital to both people depending directly on
them and to humanity as a whole. The Earth’s climate is directly
related to the conservation of forests and so is the availability
of water. Forests contain most existing terrestrial biodiversity and
help feed and cure millions
of people. Countless cultures depend on them for their survival. All
this has been acknowledged in theory by the world’s governments,
but too little is being done to put theory into practice. The result
is that forests continue to disappear.
Against this background,
forest and forest-dependent peoples are fighting an unequal battle
to recover community ownership over territories taken away from them
to serve other interests. Because such peoples tend to have a special
interest in forest conservation, as well as the knowledge needed to
use them wisely, their empowerment should be at the core of forest
conservation.
Is the Forest Stewardship
Council (FSC) contributing to this end or not? Is it strengthening
community forest management or playing into the hands of logging corporations?
Is it paving the way for the equitable use of forest resources or
helping the North maintain and increase its overconsumption?
This book aims at contributing
to the debate over such questions by looking specifically at the certification
of large-scale tree monocultures. Under the guise of so-called “planted
forests”, entire ecosystems – forests, grasslands, wetlands
– have been wiped out to make way for large-scale tree monocultures
feeding an ever-increasing appetite for wood and wood-based products,
especially in the North. None of those ecosystems was empty of humans.
On the contrary, local
people have been dispossessed of lands and forests which were the
basis of their livelihoods. Entire regions – even in areas not
themselves converted to monoculture – have suffered the impacts
of plantations on the availability of water, fish and wildlife resources
crucial to their inhabitants’
survival.
Many of those plantations
have now been certified by the FSC, thus weakening the struggles of
local communities to recover their territories or restore previous
ecosystems. Through certification, the FSC is also telling the world
an untruth: that plantations are forests. By doing so, it is also
weakening the international movement against the spread of industrial
monocultures.
By documenting and analysing
the problem, this book, it is hoped, will help convince FSC that much
needs to be changed in its approach to the certification of plantations.
Table of Contents
Executive Summary
Abouth this Book
Acknowledgements
PROBLEMATIC
CERTIFICATION OF PLANTATIONS
By Ricardo Carrere
1. Plantations versus Sustainable Community-based Forest Management
2. Evidence about the extent of FSC-certified plantations
3. How have so many tree monocultures come to be certified by the
FSC?
4. Some conclusions from the Case Studies
- Undermining local struggles and closing the door to community-based
forest management
- Irregularities in the certification process
THE
THAI CASE STUDY
SmartWood’s Certification of the Forest Industry Organisation
in Thailand: Why FSC Should Revoke the Certificate
By Chris Lang
1. Introduction
2. FIO’s History
- Ban Wat Chan
- Pulp plantations
- Illegal logging
- FIO‘s Forest villages
3. The Background to the Certification: SCC Natura and the Swedish
Connection
4. The Certification Process: Enter Smartwood
5. Compliance with FSC Principles and Criteria
6. Conclusion: FSC Should Revoke FIO’s Certificate
- A plantation is not a forest
- Undermining democracy
THE
BRAZILIAN CASE STUDY
Evaluation report of V&M Florestal Ltda. and Plantar S.A. Reflorestamentos,
both certified by the Forest Stewardship Council
By Marco Antônio Soares dos Santos André, Rosa Roldan,
Fábio Martins Villas, Maria Diana de Oliveira, José
Augusto
de Castro Tosato, Winfried Overbeek, Marcelo Calazans Soares
1. Introduction
2. Chapter 1: Some Company Features
- V&M Florestal Ltda.
- Plantar S.A. Reflorestamentos
3. Chapter 2: Certification as Carried Out by SGS and SCS
- The Composition of Certification Teams and the
- Content of their Assessments
- Participation of Interested Parties in Certification
- “Corrective Action” Requests, not Denial of Certificates
- Public Access to the Public Summary (PS)
4. Chapter 3: The Region’s Social, Economic and Environmental
Context
5. Chapter 4: Verification of FSC Principles and Criteria
6. Chapter 5: Final Considerations
Recommendations
ANNEX:
WRM Critique of FSC’s Principle 10 (Plantations)
