Archive for category: newsletter

The participants at the STTC conference in Paris. Photo: Elise Héral, ATIBT

The Sustainable Tropical Timber Coalition’s goal is to see an increase in the share of European tropical timber sales taken by verified sustainable material from today’s about 30% to 50% in 2020. This in turn, will be a significant driver for further spread of sustainable forest management in tropical supplier countries.

But vital to achieving this objective, says the STTC, is to improve accuracy, accessibility and analysis of trade statistics, hence the title of its annual conference in October – held, appropriately, in the Tropical Gardens in Paris – ‘Using data to drive market share’.

To date the STTC has primarily focused, with private and public sector partners, on market education and promotion initiatives, encouraging uptake of lesser-known tropical species and supporting sustainable procurement policy implementation.

Now, with founder IDH, The Sustainable Trade Initiative, it has made the strategic move to focus increasingly on gathering and interpreting trade data; to get a better handle on verified sustainable tropical timber volumes entering European supply chains, its origins and destinations. The objective is to inform further market development activity and ensure it is precisely targeted.

Until now, the Coalition acknowledges, the European verified sustainable tropical timber market has lacked a coherent source of definitive trade figures. Some national data monitoring has proved successful, but the pan-European picture has been less clear.

However, the Conference also highlighted that this is changing. Alongside the STTC’s efforts, other initiatives, some with its support, have emerged to track the wider European tropical timber market. Speakers also highlighted growing cooperation in the field between different players sharing the same objective of understanding sector trends and market development potential. These included the Global Timber Forum, the ITTO and the EU FLEGT Independent Market Monitor project.

Other presentations were delivered by a wide range of voices, including FSC, PEFC, IDH, Probos, the UK Timber Trade Federation, the ATIBT, the French Development Agency, Le Commerce du Bois, SNCF and the Alliance for the Preservation of Forests.

New approaches, delegates heard, were also being evolved to improve tropical timber trade monitoring, including the ‘exposure to certification’ method. And there was also a call for ‘new metrics’ for sustainability, to complement current certification schemes.

In addition the Conference featured presentations on complementary STTC-backed projects to grow European awareness of sustainable tropical timber availability and exploit its market potential. These included the ATIBT’s My Tropical Timber Website, the FSC’s new ‘Together we are FSC’ campaign, PEFC International’s programme for growing certified timber trade flows from Asia to Europe and Le Commerce du Bois’s range of verified sustainable tropical timber marketing initiatives.

Highly animated Table Talks also enabled delegates to debate the issues, focus in on specific topics and give feedback.

The Conference themes were clearly ones that struck a chord. The event attracted over 90 delegates from across the EU and tropical supplier countries. They included the range of timber businesses and representatives of industry federation representatives from across Europe and supplier countries, NGOs and certification schemes.

STTC Conferences are gaining a particular reputation for their level of delegate participation. And led with zest by enthusiastic professional moderator Peter Woodward – now an STTC Conference regular – this year’s event also sparked lively audience discussion and debate.

The Conference closed with a presentation of the STTC’s 2018-2020 roadmap from IDH Tropical Timber Programme Manager Nienke Stam. She said that further data research to steer tropical timber market development would be a core element of the STTC’s focus going forward. And among new data-based reports would be a 2018 follow-up to its 2016 publication ‘How Sustainable are Europe’s Tropical Timber Products? ‘. The original report highlighted the bottom line of growing the market for verified sustainable tropical timber. It concluded that if Europe’s seven leading timber-consuming countries sourced exclusively verified sustainable primary tropical timber products, 5.3 million ha more tropical forest would be brought under sustainable management to supply the demand.

For the full report on the STTC Conference click here

Together we are FSC

Worldwide business, government and other entities are looking to demonstrate their environmental commitment by aligning corporate social responsibility,  purchasing and other policy with UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The aim of FSC’s new STTC-backed project- ‘Together we are FSC’, to be launched fully in 2019- is to harness this trend and better illustrate the wider benefits of certified tropical timber to help drive procurement and use of verified  sustainable tropical timber.

“The backdrop to the initiative”, said FSC’s European Regional Director Anand Punja at the STTC Annual Conference, “is that worthy and impactful NGO campaigns, with the goal of combating large scale, indiscriminate logging in rainforests, had the consequence of  turning people away from buying tropical timber, despite the fact that numerous studies show the positive societal benefits that the verified sustainable certified timber trade brings to tropical forests and the local communities living within them” he said. “FSC research showed there was a gap in communicating the positive social and environmental impacts of purchasing certified tropical timber to boost demand”

This, added Mr Punja, is where the link to the SDGs come in.

“Since their adoption in 2016, the SDGs have increasingly become an important guide for the world’s businesses and public authorities to show their purpose as an entity that has wider benefits for society,” he said. “So they provide an excellent opportunity to communicate the wider positive benefits of using certified tropical timber in a way that is becoming increasingly widely accepted and utilised worldwide.”

To this end the STTC-backed FSC project will be rolled out as a campaign in 2019 to market FSC certified tropical timber, targeted at purchases and consumers. During its conception phase, the project:

• Analysed various studies (public and internal FSC reports) demonstrating the positive benefits of the sustainable tropical timber trade and map these to the SDGs;
• Developed engaging and compelling messaging about the benefits of the verified sustainable tropical trade in ‘SDG terms’;
• Developed a marketing and communication toolkit with creative assets for FSC Trademark licence holders (i.e. timber) to use under the banner of ‘Together we are FSC’;
• Marketing assets include; video’s, social media posts, posters and other promotional materials.

This project, said Mr Punja, is one of the actions to support delivery of Strategy 2 of the FSC Global Strategic Plan; to increase the market value of FSC, especially for its business stakeholders.

Photo: JPDodane

The FSC says it was not consulted by the Gabon authorities on their decision to make its certification scheme compulsory for forest concession holders in the country. However, it said it ‘strongly supported the ambition shown by the government’ and would back Gabonese forest managers in meeting FSC standards.

The consensus of a Forestry Sector Forum in Libreville at the end of November, attended by a broad spectrum of stakeholders, was also that Gabon was making the right move and the focus was primarily on how government certification goals could be realised and in what time scale.

Gabon President Ali Bongo Ondimba said that forest operations must embrace an  ‘international  standard’ on responsible logging by 2022, mentioning solely the FSC scheme.

“Any business not committed to the certification process will have its permit withdrawn,” he said on a visit to a sawmill in the north of the country.

FSC Congo Basin Director Mathieu Auger-Schwartzenberg said that the FSC supported ‘all initiatives that can lead to making responsible forest management the norm’.

“This is the core of our mission and of our Global Strategic Plan,” he said.  “We will ensure Gabon’s forest managers are given necessary support, while at the same time making sure their performance is checked rigorously, using our systems of independent third-party verification. We’re confident this will lead to measurable social and environmental benefits in Gabon.”

The FSC says it will collaborate with all involved stakeholders to develop an action plan for implementation of the government’s decision.  As a first step, it participated in the Forestry Sector Forum in Libreville in November, where FSC International Managing Director Kim Carstensen presented its certification scheme.

Also taking part in the event were forest businesses, government representatives, the PAFC/PEFC and OLB schemes, NGOs, banks and other financial and donor organisations. The PAFC/PEFC was also among those to make a presentation, although the question did not arise as to whether Gabonese concession managers should also be allowed or encouraged to adopt its scheme too.

“In his closing remarks, the [Forest] Minister reiterated that the President had made a political decision and it was now up to the experts (at the meeting) to come with a practical plan how to implement this,” said Jaap van de Waarde of the WWF Netherlands, who attended the meeting.

The WWF itself has also backed Gabon’s decision.

“It is a positive step to protect Gabon’s forest ecosystems and to ensure benefits for local communities,” said Marthe Mapangou, Director of WWF-Gabon. “WWF will continue to support the government and companies in Gabon to implement sustainable forest management and to communicate best practice in forest management through implementation of Global Forest & Trade Network (GFTN) tools.”

Currently just over 2 million ha, or 14%, of Gabon’s forest  concessions is FSC certified, comprising areas managed by Rougier, Precious Woods and Compagnie des bois du Gabon.

FSC says it will work in coming months with Gabonese forest sector stakeholders  ‘to see how concrete action plans for each concession can be developed and implemented to achieve the government’s vision’.

As for the finance needed for certification, Mr Van de Waarde said that the agencies Agence France de Developpement and KfW both indicated at the Libreville forum that they have funds to support activities that would be needed in such a process’

Mr Auger-Schwartzenberg said it would like to see other Congo Basin governments encouraging certification. ‘The Gabon government decision creates an important precedent by signalling to forestry companies in the region that this is a serious issue and that it is committed to seeing companies manage the country’s forests in a sustainable manner for the benefit of people and nature and Gabon’s place in international markets.”

Photo: Mark van Benthem, Probos

After persistent lobbying, the criteria of the Nordic Ecolabel scheme, described by critics as a ‘de facto ban’ on sale of tropical timber, are now set to be reviewed. But those pressing for change are still urging more industry stakeholders to join with them in calling for revision of the scheme.

New criteria on tropical timber were introduced for users of the Nordic Ecolabel, one of Scandinavia’s highest profile green labelling schemes, in 2016. Besides insisting that all timber products bearing the Ecolabel were 70% FSC or PEFC certified, with the remainder FSC controlled wood or from PEFC controlled sources, the scheme’s executive drew up an 82-strong list, dominated by tropical species, that it would not cover. As well as many lesser-known species, these included a range of varieties widely sold in Scandinavia and the rest of Europe. Among them are ipé, doussie, jatoba, movingui and okoumé.

Qualifications for being put on the prohibited list were CITES listing, and inclusion on the IUCN red list (categorized as critically endangered (CR)), endangered (EN), vulnerable (VU) and relevant species as Near Threatened (NT). Species from forest designated under a range of criteria as ‘unsustainable’ were also included. Requirements can be found here.

FSC Denmark, WWF Denmark, Forests of the World, the Danish Timber Trade Federation and 13 other Danish organisations and companies immediately wrote to Nordic Ecolabelling protesting about its ‘inappropriate non-approval of sustainable tropical wood’.

They said it amounted to an effective ‘dismissal’ of tropical species from using the Ecolabel and that the consequences, far from supporting maintenance of the forest, could actually damage its prospects.

“A frequent incentive for development of sustainable forestry in [tropical] areas is the substantial income that results from international demand for the timber,” stated the letter. “If this incentive is removed, certification is often abandoned, and the forest becomes vulnerable to illegal logging or conversion to other land use. We must support the forestry sector in tropical countries, purchase timber from sustainable forestry and, as a [Nordic] region, take responsibility for development of these areas.”

At the time, Nordic Ecolabelling chairwoman Kristin Linda Árndottir said its tropical list had been developed ‘through democratic process and skilled reasoning’. She said it would remain in place, with species added or removed as appropriate.

FSC Denmark is acting as the hub for current lobbying to revise the scheme.

“It’s a huge problem as it’s the most well known label in all of Scandinavia and increasingly a requirement in public procurement policies,” said FSC Denmark Project Coordinator Kristian Jørgensen.

He added that Nordic Ecolabelling was now looking at revising its criteria, with a consultation period mid-January.

“As well as seeking allies in Sweden, Norway and Finland, we would welcome letters of support from voices in the tropics and strong networks across Europe to help make the scheme understand that the markets can drive important change in  tropical forests, and certification is a reliable tool. We believe in a system based on requirements set in the forestry context instead of a single species evaluation. With all the local and regional differences in conservation status and protection and law and management practices, it would be hard to see  current species evaluation as a fair tool and it risks excluding those who have put  effort into the development of sustainable forest management,” said Mr Jørgensen.

For further information and to support the campaign, contact Kristian Jørgensen at kristian@fsc.dk.