New knowledge for the volunteers
The next meeting of the volunteers was held in the evening on the 2nd of August. This time the topic of the meeting was voluntary forest certification.
From the report presented by the Silver Taiga Foundation specialist Elena Popova the participants learned a lot of new useful information about voluntary forest certification, its development in modern Russia, and the fact that availability of this very type of certification but not the compulsory one motivates the producers to adjust their production to the standards requirements. A short insight into the main principles of the most popular standard in Russia – FSC certification – was provided; samples of household items with a logo of the standard were shown, examples of the enterprises having relevant certificates were given.
During the discussion such problems as forest inventory data deterioration and, as a consequence, difficulties during the logging planning under conditions of Russian reality, insufficient development of ecological consciousness of the citizens of our country, law interest in the quality products from the point of view of ecology were discussed.
In addition to the participants who had already attended the meetings before there were some newcomers quite actively asking questions and making global inferences. As always, the participants enjoyed the hospitality of the Foundation employees and their strong wish to share knowledge even after a hard working day when the weather outside was beckoning to leave the office.
The next meeting of the volunteers will be held in September.
Volunteer – Ksenia Panyukova