The North
Karelian Union of Forest Management Associations has been granted
the right to use the PEFC-logo as the first of the certification regions.
The licence was issued by the Finnish Forest Certification Council.
The forests
of North Karelia were given the certificate last fall. In this fall´s
monitoring audit of the region, the certification company SFS-Certification
Oy observed five slight violations of the criteria. In the audit carried
out last year, seven violations were found. In this years monitoring
audit, special attention was paid to the criteria which were not completely
met in last year´s audit.
According
to the remarks included in the monitoring audit report, there is still
a need for improvement in the methods of preserving valuable habitats
during harvesting. Shortcomings were also observed in the establishment
of buffer zones of waterways and minor water bodies.
– The
sample sizes of the systems for monitoring harvesting damages and
the quality of habitat care are too small. Besides, some actors lack
comprehensive recommendations on how to operate in valuable landscape
areas, states the monitoring audit report.
Matti
Saramäki, the executive director of the North Karelia Union of Forest
Management Associations, says that even minor certification violations
are annoying because of their recurrence. According to mr. Saramäki,
the violations include a couple of permanent issues, such as the treatment
of valuable habitats and buffer zones of water bodies.
According
to the executive director, there is also a need to increase the amount
of autonomic monitoring of the quality of harvesting and preservation
of nature.
More
prescribed burning
– More
effective training of the personnel and forest owners is required
in order to correct the violations. This also requires help from the
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. The ministry should direct more
funds to the Forestry centres, so that more control monitoring could
be carried out, demands mr. Saramäki.
He also
says that in order to form a reliable picture of the situation, information
concerning sites of special importance must be made more accessible,
control of the management of logged sites more effective and information
from different parties combined. He anticipates that most problems
will be faced concerning prescribed burning and the management of
sapling stands.
-In the
future, the realisation of sapling stand management operations and
an increase in prescribed burning will require more effective effort.
Such small amounts of forest have been burned in North Karelia that
the schedule will be tight. Only 16 hectares was burned last year,
while the requirement was almost 100 hectares. Prescribed burning
should become a habit on privately owned land also.
