Do you read the label of products
that you buy? And if you do, what motivates you? I bet most of us could say it
is the ingredients because of maybe allergies and religious believes. However,
we always fail to consider the channel or the origin of such products; whether
the production process was (is) legal or standard. For instance, when we buy
wood products, we care less about the certification standards but rather the
quality and maybe price. It is require that all forest products should undergo
Forest Certification before they are available in the market. The Wild Worldwide
Fund (WWF) defines Forest Certification as a “system
of inspection and tracking timber, pulp and other forest products to ensure
they have been harvested according to a strict set of guidelines.” A number of organizations do
Forest Certification, but the most credible one is the Forest Stewardship
Council (SFC). Founded in 1994, SFC was a result of the 1992 Earth Summit in
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that suggested formation of an independent worldwide
forest certification scheme. This scheme needed to be free of any governmental,
political, or regional influences, thus SFC came up.
SFC has established principles
that are considered before giving certification to the forest owners. The
principles not only consider the type of trees cut but also on the
socio-economic aspects of the forests such as the welfare forest employees, benefits
to the community including indigenous rights, usage tenure rights, and
environmental management and conservation measures. It is only by showing
credible application of the ten solid principles that SFC can certify a particular
forest. Program for Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes (PEFC) is also
another famous forest certification body.
I think forest certification has
to be the major point of focus if we want to promote sustainable forest management practices (SFM). With most business people rushing for cheap and
illegally logged forest products, a strict implementation Forest Certification
principle can help address such issues. It should be a law that all commercial
forest products must have a “Forest Certification” seal to save on our forests
for both the present and the future. Notably, lack of implementing and
enforcing such policies as Forest Certification, have seen regions like Sub-Saharan Africa incur
huge losses due to illegal logging;
about 17 billion US dollars, while the global loss is 100 billion US
dollars (Africa Progress Report, 2014). In his encyclical, “Laudato Si” (Our
Common Home), Pope Francis laments that it is quite unfortunate that most
countries have masterpieces of laws and policies, but they end up on shelves
without implementation and enforcement. As such, it might be difficult to go by
these Forest Certification rules, but with cooperation among various
stakeholders ranging from global, regional, national, local and private
organizations, it is cannot be any challenging. Indeed, Forest Certification is
the best way to create a world where social, economic, and ecological aspects
positively converge.
References
Pope Francis. Laudato Si (Our Common Home)
