A ‘coalition’ of environmental and social NGOs, led by Greenpeace, has attacked what it describes as the “industry-driven” PEFC and SFI environmental certification schemes.
In their just-published report called On the Ground: the controversies of PEFC and SFI, the activiststs said the two schemes “failed on key ecological and social parameters that wood and paper buyers expect from a credibly certified product”.
They based the publication on 14 “on-the-ground” and eight “procedural case studies” which, they say, showed the schemes have variously “dismissed indigenous peoples’ rights in Chile, Canada and Finland”. They also accuse them of certifying “massive old growth forest destruction in the US, Tasmania and Sweden as sustainable” and “endorsing clear cutting tropical rainforest to make room for plantations in Indonesia”.
In particular the report criticises the PEFC for “continuing to allow its brand to be used” by Asia Pulp and Paper in Indonesia, which it accuses of converting rainforest to plantations. It also says the PEFC-endorsed Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme is failing to recognise the rights of indigenous people.
Jim Ford, director of Climate for Ideas, one of the other NGOs behind the report, said the criticised schemes must “either revoke certificates where indigenous and community rights have not been respected, biodiversity values are not being protected and forest conversion has occurred, or verify changes on the ground have happened”.’
