Greenpeace International ends its Forest Stewardship Council membership

The international arm of Greenpeace has ended its membership with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a certification organization that aims to ensure responsibly managed forests. “We believe robust timber certification is a helpful but imperfect tool for protecting people’s rights and improving forest management, which is why Greenpeace International will not renew its Forest Stewardship Council membership,” Matt Daggett, a campaign leader at Greenpeace International, said in a statement. Greenpeace announced its decision on March 26, saying in a briefing statement that the FSC was not accomplishing its goals of protecting forests and the rights of people who live there. The organization called on the FSC to increase the transparency of its certification process and to do more to ensure that certified companies were indeed adhering to the FSC’s social and environmental standards. Greenpeace also said the FSC needed to go beyond the certification of timber operations to safeguard standing forests. The briefing statement noted that the FSC’s application of its policies across countries was “uneven,” especially in places where forest governance was lacking. FSC-certified Deramakot Forest Reserve in Malaysian Borneo. Photo by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay. Several national Greenpeace offices, located in countries with stronger forest governance, are sticking with the FSC, including those in the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, Finland and China, according to the FSC. Greenpeace International confirmed that it would not seek membership with other “weaker forest certification schemes” such as the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification. In an interview, FSC director general Kim Carstensen said…

from Conservation news https://ift.tt/2uxWsOa
via IFTTT