Forest Stewardship Council ‘Still The Best’ Says WWF
WWF recently compared the two international forest certification schemes, naming the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) the better of the two.
The Program for Endorsement of Certification Systems (PEFC), a global umbrella organisation for the assessment of and mutual recognition of national forest certification schemes, was also assessed.
WWF, in partnership with the World Bank, developed the Forest Certification Assessment Guide (FCAG), to assess the quality and credibility of forest certification schemes.
Such schemes promote responsible forest management and purchasing of forest products from well-managed forests.
Based on the latest assessment and previous assessments, WWF found that FSC meets the requirements of the FACG. In particular, for:
- driving significant improvements in forest management on the ground;
- meeting as a minimum WWF’s core values on meaningful and equitable participation of all major stakeholder groups, reliable and independent assessment, certification decisions free of conflicts of interest, transparency in decision making and reporting; and
- delivering consistency across countries
Method of Assessment
In assessing the two schemes, WWF looked at the following:
- An analysis of the FSC and PEFC Systems for Forest Management Certification, using the Forest Certification Assessment Guide (FCAG), Walter, October 2008;
- An analysis of Corrective Action Requests (CAR) of FSC and PEFC across six countries in Europe, Hirschberger, 2005;
- The Global Impacts of SmartWood Certification, Newsom & Hewitt, 2005.
- Forest Certification Credibility Assessment in Indonesia Applying the Forest Certification Assessment Guide on National Level, Hinrichs & Prasetyo, 2007
Improvements Needed
WWF says that while FSC is the better scheme, both certification schemes could do with improvements.
In particular, PEFC needs to:
- improve on transparency of decision-making and reporting;
- improve on balanced and equitable stakeholder participation
- demonstrate improvements on the ground;
- develop a consistent approach across countries. WWF says that, while some national PEFC schemes were better in performance than others, the common use of the PEFC logo does not allow buyers to differentiate between them.
FSC needs to improve in its approach to interim standards.
WWF also said that few changes had been implemented by the schemes since the last assessment in 2005.
The Importance Of Forest Certification
WWF has often spoken of the importance of forest certification schemes.
One WWF study in Europe in 2005 showed that certification led to significant improvements to biodiversity conservation, management planning, health and safety, and the employment rights of forest workers.
“Our analysis provides conclusive evidence of the value of credible certification for a wide range of stakeholders across Europe” said Duncan Pollard, Head of the WWF European Forest Programme.
“We simply looked at what actual changes FSC certification has brought in forest management, and the results speak for themselves. The study also brings out clearly the social and economic benefits which FSC brings for policy makers, governments, forest owners, forest industry, those employed in the forest industry and recreational forest users” he continued.
WWF concluded that credible certification brings added value to society, the environment, and the economy.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Hmm - appears as if the study was rigged, which I find amazing given that we’re talking about WWF here…. see http://www.pefc.org/internet/html/news/4_1154_64/5_1105_1992.htm I’ve checked out the footnotes, and have to agree with the comments made by PEFC. Makes me actually wonder why WWF feels it neccessary to do something like this - risking their credibility for FSC. But whatever the reason is, I wish they would simply support both systems - with so many more forests to protect, they should rely on everything that is out there to help us accomplish this task