FSC greenwashing Brazil’s monoculture tree plantations: Part 1

World Rainforest Movement’s website currently has a great image of FSC’s greenwashing of industrial tree plantations on the front page (click on the image below to go to WRM’s website):

Certification of monoculture tree plantations – open letter to FSC members

“Plantations are monocultures, created from seemingly endless rows of identical trees. They suck the water out of nearby streams and ponds and lower the water table, leaving little or no water for people living near the plantations. They deplete soils, pollute the environment with agrotoxics and eradicate biodiverse local ecosystems. Activists in Brazil call them the green desert because of the way they destroy local people’s livelihoods and environments. But what’s almost as bad as the plantations themselves is that this sort of plantation is given a green seal of approval by the Forest Stewardship Council.”

The Secret Life of Paper

Inform recently produced “The Secret Life of Paper”. The video promises to answer the questions, “How is paper production related to forest destruction and global warming?” and “Why is recycling and buying recycled paper important?”

Federal court rules that Veracel must uproot its trees

A Brazilian Federal Court ruled in June 2008 that Veracel must uproot 96,000 hectares of eucalyptus plantations and replant the land with native trees. Veracel was also fined US$12.5 million for deforesting areas of the Atlantic Forest with bulldozers and tractors during its first years of operation.

Veracel: FSC’s Death Certificate

Statement from WRM, 19 March 2008:

Yesterday we were notified by the Forest Stewardship Council certifying body SGS (Société Générale de Surveillance) that they have awarded an FSC certificate to Veracel’s eucalyptus plantations in Brazil. What they did not announce in the e-mail was that together with that certificate they were also giving the FSC its death certificate.

FSC in Laos

Subject: FSC in Laos
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 09:52:45 +0100
From: Chris Lang
To: Richard Donovan (Rainforest Alliance/SmartWood)
CC: smartwood@….id, FSC-Watch, Ricardo Carrere (WRM)

FSC-watch

Earlier this week I was involved in launching a new website: FSC-watch.org. The website documents the problems with the FSC system and hopes to generate an open discussion of these problems. Perhaps not surprisingly, it’s generated a steady flow of emails. Most controversial seems to be the reference to the letter sent to FSC and signed by 75 organisations. The letter is a “closed” letter – which some people seem to think means that we can’t even talk about it.

A note on the FSC certification of forests in Laos

Ben Hodgdon send me this paper: “A note on the FSC certification of forests in Laos” and asked me to post it on this blog.*

Laos: What did SmartWood know when it issued the certificate?

By Chris Lang. Published in WRM Bulletin 111, October 2006.

A leaked report earlier this year indicated serious problems in an FSC certified logging operation. FSC’s certifier, SmartWood, was oblivious to the problems – at the time the report was written, they hadn’t visited the forests they’d certified for three years.

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FSC certification in Savannahkhet, Laos – reply from SmartWood

From: Richard Donovan
To: Chris Lang
Cc: Jeffrey Hayward (SmartWood), Loy Jones (SmartWood Asia Pacific Regional Manager), Hubert Bonafos (ASI), Heiko Liedeker, FSC
Date: 24.10.2006 00:04
Subject: FSC certification in Savannahkhet, Laos – response from SmartWood

FSC certification in Laos

From: William Magrath (World Bank)
To: Chris Lang
Cc: Björn Roberts (Tropical Forest Trust), Christian Sloth (Rainforest Alliance/SmartWood), Harri Seppänen (Ramboll Finnconsult), Heiko Liedeker (FSC), Hugh Blackett (Tropical Forest Trust), Hilary Thompson (Tropical Forest Trust), Jeffrey Hayward (Rainforest Alliance/SmartWood), Loy Jones (Rainforest Alliance/SmartWood), Marko Katila (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Finland), Rod Taylor (WWF Indonesia), Simon Greenaway (Tropical Forest Trust), Scott Poynton (Tropical Forest Trust), Tensie Whelan (Rainforest Alliance/SmartWood), Richard Donovan (Rainforest Alliance/SmartWood), Bouahong Phanthanousi (Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, SUFORD National Project Coordinator) Jussi Viitanen (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Finland) Matti Junnila (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Finland)
Date: 19.10.2006 17:07

TFT response to Laos article

Scott Poynton, Executive Director of Tropical Forest Trust responded yesterday to my article in last month’s WRM Bulletin about the certification of logging in Laos.

FSC response to Laos article

FSC has responded to my article in last month’s WRM Bulletin about their certification of logging in Laos. SmartWood will carry out an audit of the operations in October 2006.

SmartWood response to Laos article

SmartWood has responded to my article in last month’s WRM Bulletin about their certification of logging in Laos. SmartWood will carry out an audit of the operations in October 2006.

Laos: FSC certified timber is illegal

Forestry operations in Laos are producing timber which is illegal under the Lao Forestry Law. No surprises there, then. But the fact that the operations are certified under the FSC system is perhaps just a little surprising.

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Logging in Laos

This leaked report about logging in Laos appeared in my e-mail a few weeks ago, in the virtual equivalent of an unmarked brown envelope.