The Green Economy

By Chris Lang and Timothy Byakola

There are some 800 million automobiles in the world, consuming over 50 percent of the energy produced in the world, making individual vehicles the prime cause of the greenhouse effect. Although there is consensus that climate change is a fact, there is no serious intention of changing the life-style causing it and instead, technological solutions are being sought to enable the companies benefiting from this model to maintain their profits. In this context, over the past years biofuels have started to be promoted as an alternative to global warming.

Everyone now seems to agree that the Earth’s climate is changing as a direct result of human activities and that the social, environmental, political and economic consequences will be catastrophic if nothing is done – and fast – to address the problem.

In our previous issue (WRM Bulletin Nº 110), we published a section on “plantation certification at its worse”, including the case of the Pan European Forest Certification Scheme (PEFC), a programme for the endorsement of national certification schemes.

The Sustainable Forestry Initiative - launched in 1995 by the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA), the most powerful timber trade association in the world - covers an area over 40,485,830 ha in the United States and Canada. It is, in essence, a certification scheme by the forestry industry for the forestry industry. AF&PA member companies, including the largest loggers in the United States and Canada and the largest wholesale distributors of global wood products, account for 82% of the funds of SFI.

Last month I wrote an article about FSC certification of “village forestry” in Laos. The article was based on a leaked report from a World Bank and Finnish government project, the Sustainable Forestry and Rural Development Project (SUFORD). The SUFORD report documented serious problems with logging under the project, of which 39,000 hectares has been certified by SmartWood under the Forest Stewardship Council system.

By Benjamin D. Hodgdon -

The PEFC was set up between 1998 and 1999 by the national forestry interest groups – mainly associations of small-forest owners in several European countries as the Pan European Forest Certification Scheme. It changed to its current name after having endorsed other non-European schemes. The scheme is governed by the PEFC Council, which consists of representatives of national certification schemes and are the PEFC’s members. The PEFC is not a single certification scheme with a single standard, but a programme for the endorsement of national certification schemes.

The Brazilian CERFLOR certification programme, endorsed by the international PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes), was officially launched in 2002 by the Ministry of Development, Industry and Trade and started to operate in March 2003.

In the year 2000 Chilean forestry companies announced the launching of their own forestry certification scheme, CERTFOR. This label was created under the auspices of the Fundación Chile, the Forestry Institute (Instituto Forestal - Infor) with the financial support of the Corporation for the Promotion of Production - CORFO (Corporación de Fomento de la Producción). After having attempted to join FSC – seeking international legitimacy – and following a negative answer, CERTFOR approached another international certification system: PEFC.

In our previous issue (WRM bulletin 109) we made reference to the promotion of oil palm plantations, denouncing their negative impacts on the Amazon forest and on displaced peasants. The wave of plantations continues, with other types of alien trees. In July of this year the National Reforestation Plan was submitted, promoting plantations for commercial and industrial purposes. Adopted in January 2006, the plan set out an average annual rate of plantation of 104,500 hectares from now until the year 2024.

When a forestry operation is certified under the Forest Stewardship Council system, it should mean we can all relax in the knowledge that the forests are reasonably well managed. Unfortunately, it seems, this is not the case. SmartWood, an FSC accredited certifier, recently certified forestry operations in Laos which are producing timber that is illegal under the Lao Forestry Law.