The forest
certification initiative developed by the Finnish forest industry
and MTK (The Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners)
being presented tomorrow in Helsinki fails to satisfy the most significant
environmental organisations in Finland.
The primary
goal of environmental NGOs is to develop a certification system which
significantly improves the conservation of biodiversity in managed
forests. Several Finnish environmental NGOs together with numerous
other European organisations have signed a declaration, in which the
characteristics of a credible certification system are listed. The
declaration states that so far FSC is the only certification system
to meet these demands.
There
are some 700 endangered forest-dwelling species in Finland. Forest
protection alone is not enough to save these species: changes need
to take place also in the management of commercial forests. To this
end Finnish NGOs find the following points of particular importance
in forest certification:
- that
old-growth forests and other key habitats remain unlogged also in
managed forest areas
- that
the area of forests permanently left unlogged is increased
- that
the amount of deciduous trees in managed forests is increased
- that
the number of individual trees retained in both thinnings and final
fellings is increased
Finnish
environmental NGOs hope that it would still be possible to develop
a national FSC standard in Finland. The developement of a national
FSC standard requires that there be a working group consisting of
people from various environmental, social and economic intrest groups
supporting FSC.
The task
of such a working group is to develop a standard according to the
principles of FSC. The standard should also be in compliance with
FSC standards approved in neighbouring countries with similar circumstances.
Numerous organisations in Europe give their support to FSC.
Numerous
European NGOs have signed a declaration on the requirements of a credible
forest certification system. In this declaration, signed also by many
Finnish NGOs, it is stated that a forest certificate should comprise
two components: forest auditing, which makes sure that the loggings
and other management activities comply with the specific certification
standards and product certification with a chain-of-custody monitoring
of a timber product from the forest to the customer, which makes possible
product labelling.
In addition
a credible certification system has to fulfil e.g. the following basic
requirements:
- to
improve forest management and ensure market access for certified
wood products
- to
provide a standard with internationally applicable and comparable
as well as objective and measurable criteria
- the
system should be acceptable to a large range of involved parties
and be credible to both consumers and NGOs
While
it is recognised that a range of initiatives can make positive contibutions
towards more sustainable forest management, the undersigned organisations
consider FSC to currently offer the only framework to meet the basic
requirements of a good certification system.
The Finnish
Nature League
WWF Finland
Natur
och Miljö
Finnish
Association for Nature Conservation
Greenpeace
Nordic
Birdlife
Finland
