PEFC does not fulfil minimum credibility requirements

European NGOs reject PEFC

Antwerp, 8th of April 2000

European NGOs gathered in Antwerp, Belgium, on 8th April 2000, expressed their serious concern about global and regional threats to forests and forest values. While forest loss due to deforestation is the most prominent threat in many tropical countries, devastation and loss of natural diversity continues unchecked in many temperate and boreal forest regions. Currently, few management operations are truly environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable. To safeguard the remaining forests and their respective biological diversity, for nature itself, and as a sustainable renewable resource for future generations, change is needed.

Forest certification was developed over the past years as a response to this urgent need for change. It is a tool to provide market recognition for those that are prepared to provide the necessary change and implement good forest management. The undersigned organizations welcome the fact that the European forest owners associations have shifted their position from a total denial of forest management certification towards a more proactive approach. However, the undersigned organizations identified at least three basic requirements where PEFC is still deficient.

1. PEFC must demonstrate that it will ensure meaningful improvement of forest management in Europe.

PEFC has not yet demonstrated how it is able to ensure a meaningful improvement of forest management. Existing standards vary greatly and the respective criteria & indicators fall short in several areas. In addition PEFC's environmental standards are extremely vague. Thus, logging in Europe's last old growth forests is still ongoing (i.e. Norway, Finland). Traditional rights of indigenous people and workers rights are little addressed and existing conflicts are ignored (i.e. Samii People in Sweden). In addition, it remains unclear whether PEFC is based on performance standards in all countries or whether the certification of management systems without any evaluation of environmental performance (i.e. France) will be accepted under PEFC.

2. PEFC must fully respect UNCED (i.e. the Agenda 21 and give equal representation and decision making competence to all stakeholders).

PEFC has not yet developed a comprehensive system for reaching consensus about acceptable, locally applicable certification standards. The PEFC statutes and their respective distribution of votes clearly reflect vested interests. Private forest owners associations and participating industries currently control all decision-making processes in regional, national and European PEFC bodies. A balanced representation of environmental, social and economic interests and competence was neither formally nor practically guaranteed within any national PEFC (i.e. Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Germany) or the European PEFCC.

3.The PEFC system must ensure international compatibility.

PEFC was developed in Europe for European countries exclusively. It does not only ignore forest problems in the rest of the world, but limits access to northern forest industries. It therefore undermines major progress made in RIO and in the Intergovernmental Forum on Forest (IFF) to recognize forests as global commons and forest problems as a concern to the global community. PEFC claims to address this deficiency through the formation of a global network of "mutually recognized" certification systems and standards. However, similar attempts to develop international systems for mutual recognition of forest management standards have failed in the past (i.e. CIFOR). Without clear and rigorous guidelines for "mutual recognition" PEFC will become an umbrella for all sorts of attempts to secure and label the status quo in forest management. In addition such mutual recognition will undoubtedly flood the market with a vast number of different certificates (and logos). It will confuse and mislead the consumer.

The undersigned organizations highlight the fact that the PEFC currently does not provide an acceptable certification scheme for good forest management.

Undersigning organizations 01st of May 2000: