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NGO Leaders Share Their Certification Expertise
Note from the editors: This section presents the views of three leading experts on certification from the Russian environmental community. The organizations they represent, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Greenpeace Russia, and the Socio-Ecological Union, are a key force driving the campaign to implement voluntary certification standards in Russia's forests. Although their organizations may vary in [their] particular points of view, they are working together in their common mission to promote greater awareness of the methods, benefits, and opportunities offered by certification. Purpose of Certification What is the most important task of certification? AP: Forest certification has two primary functions: 1) to improve and perfect forest management: and 2) to make certified products available to consumers. Certification also serves to accomplish greater transparency in the forestry sector; increased quality in logging practices; improvement in tax collection from the forest industry and in the use of these taxes; more effective work along the entire chain of custody; and the ability to attract greater investment. Certification has great potential to unite NGOs, the forest industry, the forestry sector, timber sellers, workers' unions, and indigenous peoples. Certification may also be instrumental as a basis for forest policy. The World Bank, in its alliance with WWF. has pledged to raise the quantity of voluntarily certified forests in its client countries (including Russia) up to 200 million ha by the year 2005, 100 million ha of which should be certified in boreal forests. According to the Bank, if this goal is attained, around 600 million m3 of round wood, or six percent of the world timber production could be certified. However, WWF believes this that this may be an overestimation. According to our calculations, the volume of certified round wood in the world will range from 100 to 120 million m3 by the year 2003. VC: One of Greenpeace Russia's main conservation objectives for our planet is preserving the last major tracts of undisturbed forests; thus, we believe that certification's most important purpose is to allocate special status to these forests. Challenges of Certification What are the main obstacles today in implementing certification in Russia? AP: When the doors to the forestry sector opened wide to investors in the years following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, so did the doors to many problems. Today, the sector must deal with a lack of planning and management, and also forestry regulation violations. The problems in implementing voluntary forestry certification may be categorized into the following spheres: legal, economic, environmental, and social. First, in the legal sphere, the Federal Forest Service monopolizes the forestry sector by essentially writing its own rules and guidelines, which do not take into account the specifies of market economics in the forestry sector. Russia has signed international agreements on sustainable forest use, but these commitments have gone practically unfulfilled. Furthermore, the Federal Forest Service omits the interests of forest stakeholders in its activities and restricts access to its information. From an economic point of view, the planning and management of the forest sector is too centralized, inflexible, and wasteful. Consequently, it is unable to cope on the market. The sector is also not able to draw upon the necessary investment for roads, equipment, and the building of infrastructure. In many regions illegal logging has proliferated, a reflection of the breakdown in regional administrations. Forestry departments cannot ward off such illegal activity. as many themselves are plagued by corruption, spurred mostly by great financial difficulties. Environmental problems that threaten to thwart certification include: the impoverishment of forests, for instance the formation of low-value, small-leafed forests stemming from poorly conducted loggings and forest restoration; the destruction of the last major tracts of little-disturbed forests; catastrophic forest fires and widespread insect infestation; damage caused by heavy equipment; and the pollution of some forests by industrial emissions. The absence of a long-term vision for the forests, such as a landscape planning approach and inventories of rare ecosystems-not to mention a significant decrease in the number of forest rangers responsible for forest protection-have only exacerbated environmental problems today. Shortcomings in the social sphere, where many communities are crumbling, giving way to shady economies, pose an especially great hindrance to certification. Many residents in logging villages who work (or were once employed) in the forestry industry often haven't received a paycheck in years. Social issues could be the most burdensome to address in the certification process. The aforementioned problems have not imparted a positive impression of the Russian forestry sector abroad. It will take political will and the coordinated effort of many organizations in order to reinstate a new image of this sector. Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in Russia How does the current legislative framework in Russia support or hinder the implementation of FSC certification? VC: The first FSC Principle stresses that national and regional laws must be observed in developing certification standards, but there exist many contradictory laws in Russia that prove problematic in the FSC process. For example, the Russian Water Code includes an article that bans commercial logging in protected water zones, yet the Forest Code permits this activity. The Russian Forest Club (made up of representatives from Greenpeace Russia, the Biodiversity Conservation Center, the Socio-Ecological Union, and the Druzhina Student Nature Corps) believes that it is essential to draft national certification standards that detail FSC's Principles and Criteria for Russian conditions in order to mitigate contradictions between FSC Principles and national legislation. In fact, this should be a primary goal of the national working group on FSC certification in Russia. AP: Harmonizing certification with existing legislation is far from simple. The present forestry regulations were written during the Soviet period in such a complicated and intricate fashion that even those working in this sector don't fully understand them. For comparison, in a typical Finnish logging area, the foresters themselves choose from a limited number of around 500 regulations on silviculture and timber harvesting to be applied in a given area, whereas in an area of equal size in Russia there exist approximately 2000 such rules and regulations that may possibly be applied by foresters and in forest inventories. This tangle of regulations is difficult to wade through, especially for foreign companies. Today, what are the primary difficulties in organizing the FSC process? AP: In FSC certification, the means of arriving at the final consensus for standards is as important as the end result. The FSC working group on standard development takes form through a general negotiation process during round table discussions. This process should evenly engage the feedback and opinions of all interests and ensure transparency. Such a democratic process, however, is largely unfamiliar in Russia; it is more characteristic for the less influential side to automatically cave in to decisions that counteract their position. The working group's progress may also be impeded by dominance and aggression displayed by some members with extensive expertise over others with lesser qualifications. The possibility of misinterpreting certification terminology in a culturally and professionally diverse working group is another challenge in the FSC process that deserves mention. If the definitions of certification terms are not explicitly clarified from the beginning of the negotiation process, great complications and confusion could ensue. In addition to specific difficulties in the working group, a more general problem in the FSC process is the definition of regions where certification standards will apply. This is a crucial issue, as the primary support for standard development today in Russia is concentrated on the regional level. Regions where certification will take place may he differentiated according to forest type, biological and landscape features, or administrative divisions. Delineating a region along natural borders, however, could encompass land that is fragmented into two or more administrative regions. Although the land may be homogenous, the attitudes and approach of each regional administration toward certification are not. These incongruities greatly muddle the certification process, or make it altogether impossible. In order to circumvent this. WWF suggests that either standards are developed simultaneously in each region, or that they are developed in one region, then distributed to others that share natural and economic characteristics and have a compatible working group on certification standards. VC: From a financial point of view, the issue of funding certification presents a formidable burden for Russian companies. Several different options, however, can make this process more feasible. For instance, companies may seek sponsors, apply for grants, or several small companies may be collectively certified. An auditor, recognizing the viability of the Russian market, may offer substantial discounts to timber companies or provide certification services free of charge. Should more effort be directed toward developing FSC standards on the regional or national level in Russia today? DA: The experience of large countries such as the USA shows that the FSC national process should take into account regional features; however, in Russia there is a trend toward developing regional criteria specific to separate administrative jurisdictions, for example the Karelian and Komi Republics, Leningrad Oblast, or Vologodsk Oblast. It would he more sensible to use larger regional units encompassing natural, social, and economic features and to think beyond political boundaries. AP: I believe that certification on the regional level holds the most promise for the development and implementation of certification standards because it is much easier to work with all stakeholders on this level. A national certification standard, on the other hand, seems to be an improbable goal in such a large, diverse country as Russia. The national standard working group faces many obstacles, the first of which is maintaining the group as a cohesive unit. With representatives in the group scattered all over Russia, it is expensive to hold regular meetings. Obligatory vs. Voluntary Certification What is your position on obligatory certification as prescribed by the Russian Federal Forest Service? VC: As required by Article 71 of the Russian Forest Code. the system of obligatory certification for standing timber has been drafted by the Federal Forest Service. Still in its final stage of development, this system has not been officially instituted in Russia. It is intended, however, to be introduced throughout Russia, applying to all Russian timber companies. Unlike voluntary certification, which is intended as a mechanism promoting timber products from sustainable managed forests on worldwide markets, obligatory certification serves as a trade barrier, contradicting the regulations of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Currently, negotiations are being held on the possibility of Russia joining the WTO. Greenpeace Russia has identified a host of drawbacks in the Federal Forest Service's current proposal for obligatory certification. First of all, practically no social constituents are represented in the process of developing criteria for obligatory certification. Second, the Federal Forest Service has a limited capacity to institute certification; today there are only a maximum of 10 forest teams in the Forest Planning Service (field division) capable of certifying forests while there are more than 30,000 forest users. This severe shortage of these teams threatens to undermine the whole point of certification. As one solution, the Federal Forest Service has proposed to issue certificates in advance, with subsequent verification, contradicting the process laid out by FSC, in which standards and criteria must precede the issuing of a certificate. Third, the Forest Code specifies that standing timber be certified, implying certification of the methods used in tree cultivation, which further muddles the terminology used in the forestry sector. Fourth, the Federal Forest Service, one of the country's main forest users, has itself drafted the project on obligatory certification. Under such a circumstance, the Federal Forest Service would essentially certify its own work in the absence of a third party (auditor), a practice that is impermissible in the eyes of NGOs. Finally, obligatory certification lacks one important step; labeling. The Russian government has no system to publicly mark the timber that has met certification criteria. Without this, timber processors will have no way of knowing whether their timber has been certified and, consequently, will be unable to market the special value of their final product. Under the obligatory system, only the Federal Forest Service and the companies that purchase timber directly from it will know which timber is certified. DA: In our opinion there will he no demand for timber products certified by the Federal Forest Service's obligatory certification process, particularly because of the public attitudes toward governmental resource management agencies. The proposal of obligatory certification has been released at a time when consumer trust in government agencies and industry is on the wane. A recent survey conducted by the Angus Reid Group in several European countries informs that 79 percent of the people surveyed believe environmental information coming from NGOs; 37 percent trust such information from the forest industry. For Russian timber companies, obligatory certification is essentially a new form of taxation. Companies will again have to pay agencies under the Federal Forest Service's jurisdiction (though not the Federal Forest Service directly) as proof of their compliance with federally mandated harvesting and management practices. The Federal Forest , Service, however, is already responsible for ensuring that current forestry legislation is observed. In effect, Russian timber companies will he forced to pay millions to support the Federal Forest Service's new certification bodies, essentially paying for a service which should already be provided to them. AP: My organization strongly advocates work on the harmonization of voluntary and obligatory certification standards. As far as 1 can see, obligatory and voluntary certification do not counteract each other. This, however, could present a large problem for forest users who would have to receive a double certification. Though, it could be proposed that the users already certified by FSC or ISO 14001 would be exempt from obligatory certification as they would have already demonstrated their adherence to the methods of sustainable forest management. Note from the editors: RCN editors have supplemented some excerpts taken from in-depth interviews with the NGO representatives to provide clarification based on the entire interview. | |||||
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