The Finnish
Nature League has become the third Finnish member of the Forest Stewardship
Council (FSC). The other two members are WWF Finland and the Finnish
Association for Nature Conservation. Also Greenpeace Nordic is an
FSC member. Forest Stewardship Council is the most important organisation
for the co-operation between forest industry, environmental groups
and forest users in developping ecologically and socially sustainable
forest management.
At the
moment FSC has 356 members in 49 countries. Altogether 17,35 million
hectares have been FSC-certified in 30 countries.
Finnish
environmental NGOs do not consider the Finnish nation wide certification
scheme as a true forest ecocertification. True ecocertification is
performance based, third party audited and voluntary with clear decision
by the forest owners to develop their forest management according
to the certification criteria. In ecocertification the biodiversity
of a forest is surveyed within forest management plan well before
logging. The FSC-system meets these requirements.
At the
moment two Finnish companies import FSC-certified timber since there
are no FSC-certified forests in Finland. The customers of these companies
want a guarantee of the more ecologically sustainable origin of the
timber. Apparently there are no customers demanding specifically the
Finnish forest certificate developed by the Finnish forest industry
and the Forest Owners (MTK).
It has
been publicly claimed that the British DIY chain B&Q would have "approved"
of the Finnish certificate. In reality B&Q announced they will continue
to prefer FSC to other certified products. In addition the Finnish
industry will be excluded from much of the publicity and promotion
of timber and FSC products. Without FSC label B&Q predicts a reduction
in its purchases from Finland and where alternatives do exist it will
strongly encourage that change. 79% of all B&Q product lines will
be FSC-certified. Of the remaining 21 % the company will discontinue
or replace 1 %. The 19,5 % i.e. 2 876 products from Finland will be
replaced gradually. The annual turnover of B&Q is $ 6,4 billion.
"I feel
sorry for the Finnish forest owner when companies and pressure groups
in our country are so self-conceited. Keeping distance to FSC is a
signal of an attitude where the customer is never right. This applies
to the whole forest sector in the country. Fortunately several Swedish
companies are FSC members, making the Scandinavian forestry expertise
available in FSC developement." says Matti Ikonen, the ecocertification
specialist from the Finnish Nature League.
"Regular
Finnish forest owner does not have such a negative attitude towards
nature as their pressure group MTK. It is unfair that the mighty forest
industry blames the small forest owner for not co-operating in certification.
The forest industry could get the FSC certification going by ecocertifying
its own forests first."