With reference to the article “CPET must do better” (TTJ November 27/December 4, 2004.
FSC welcomed the assessment’s finding that FSC-certified material meets government criteria for both legality and sustainability. We also feel, as the article pointed out, that the selected criteria were weighted towards environmental issues, whereas FSC aims to place equal emphasis on the three requirements for sustainability: environmental, social and economic concerns. We also believe that our standards are representative of very best practice or what we would call “responsible management” rather than of “sustainability”. The term is difficult to define, hard to know when it is achieved and most importantly implies that nothing else needs to be improved.
The article referred to countries where FSC forest management certificates have been issued against “generic standards” or locally adapted certification body standards. This is the case and, in fact, the FSC system did not receive full points for this CPET criterion. However, certification bodies’ generic forest management standards must themselves comply with the FSC Principles & Criteria, which are international in scope. All locally adapted certification body and accredited national standards are variations of this international standard. We believe that these standards do therefore meet the requirements of the ISEAL Code of Good Practice (that the CPET criterion references). While we accept the integrity of CPET we were disappointed that we did not score better on this issue.
FSC does agree that FSC-accredited national standards are preferable to the use of generic certification body standards. FSC is taking steps to phase out the use of generic standards and encourages the development of accredited national FSC standards. We have learned from experience of national standard setting processes to date and are producing tools to facilitate the process.
In the meantime it is critical that forest managers from all countries should have fair access to international markets for timber from responsibly managed forests. FSC is the only international scheme that has always championed access to markets for all timber, including tropical, on the basis of internationally recognised standards. We believe it is essential that all countries can participate in the FSC system. Twenty-nine tropical countries are already supplying FSC-certified wood to ‘northern’ markets – a level of access which would be impossible without the formal procedures which allow certification on the basis of locally adapted certification body standards, which themselves comply with the internationally recognised FSC Principles and Criteria.
Anna Jenkins
Director, FSC UK
