Talk about Hot Buttons in Forest Management
The talk between representatives of forest sector companies and rural residents took place at a regular regional Forest Dialogue meeting “FSC Certification: Local Communities and Logging Companies” in the Komi Republic Chamber of Commerce and Industry on May 11-12. The conference was facilitated by the Silver Taiga Foundation for Sustainable Development supported by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Mondi Group.
The conference was attended by over 50 people in total – representatives of forestry companies holding FSC certificates from the Komi Republic and adjacent regions, experts of auditing and consulting companies, heads of municipal administrations, leaders of public organizations, and rural activists. Particular issues related to the companies’ compliance with social requirements of forest certification were raised for discussion.
Participants of the Forest Dialogue cooperating in the forest management process got together to exchange their experience of handling hot issues and tasks and to develop recommendations for further activities. Owing to real-life communication the meeting attendees – the so-called stakeholders and parties affected, in particular, heads of rural administrations, members of social organizations (mostly, representatives of the Interregional Public Movement Komi Voytyr), and village activists – got an opportunity to improve their competence related to FSC certification, human rights protection, and participation of local population in forest management.
In addition, companies holding certificates, local activists and FSC certification experts discussed relevant debatable topics connected with social aspects of forest certification during the Forest Dialogue. In the course of the common discussion the forum participants were looking for the ways to solve the existing problems.
“To my mind, there was a dialogue – all the parties clearly displayed their interest to social aspects of the certification. Moreover, they provided proposals with regard to what actions are to be taken urgently and later on to handle the existing problems on the national level. The conference will result in a resolution and recommendations for stakeholders to be provided to the FSC office, Forestry Administration of the Komi Republic Ministry of Industry, forestries and certified companies”, Yury Pautov, director of the Silver Taiga Foundation, summed up.
Forest Dialogue meetings devoted to forest management and use have been held in the Komi Republic since 2009. The problems of cooperation between local communities and forest business have been raised repeatedly. This meeting has been the first one to consider such topics through the concept of social requirements of forest certification. Today, around 15 companies in the region operate certified leased areas and produce certified goods. Another 300 suppliers of these companies also meet certification requirements in some way. Mondi Syktyvkar, which announced its plans in 2006 to certify completely all its products and thus encouraged all its suppliers to introduce forest management certification at their leased areas, became the key driver for FSC certification in Komi. The others that followed were SevLesPil, Severo-Zapadny Lesnoy Terminal, LokchimLesProm, Luzales, Yaspoles, SLDK, KarpogoryLes, LZK Lunvozh, Ilim Group, Mayskles, etc. All these companies export their goods to the environmentally sensitive western market, and they are bound to deal with certification.
As is obvious from the reports of municipal administrations and heads of rural settlements, Mondi Syktyvkar’s meeting its social liabilities is almost flawless. Only some details of effective agreements between local communities and Komi’s leader of the wood processing industry were discussed at the conference. However, there were quite a few reprimands with regard to such companies as SevLesPil and LZK Lunvozh from representatives of local communities of Sysola and Priluzye districts. The companies have almost no contact with the local population of the districts where they operate their leased areas.
At present, almost 3.3 million hectares of forests are certified in the Komi Republic. It all started with Priluzye forestry where the Priluzye Model Forest project was implemented. The Model Forest was certified in 2003, and since then Koygorodok, Sysola and Kazhim forestries have also participated in the certification procedure.
“When the first test certification was performed in 1998, the Smart Wood auditors put 23 so-called preconditions, or requirements to remedy non-compliance, to Priluzye forestry. 12 out of 23 mandatory preconditions somehow referred to social aspects of certification. All that happened, when no one even thought of any cooperation with local communities or protection of mushroom, berry or hunting grounds. Certification pushed the companies to follow social partnership policy. And in 2012, when the Silver Taiga Foundation jointly with Mondi Syktyvkar conducted another Forest Dialogue, it turned out that for the last 18 years leaseholders, forest services and authorities have learnt how to settle complicated social issues with the local population. However, certification requirements continuously toughen, so we have to solve new tasks”, Yury Pautov explained.
A special focus of the conference of 11-12 May was given to development of a new FSC standard – principles, criteria and indicators for FSC requirements compliance auditing. Now the process is under second public hearing. An official interregional expert group was established, and the first version of the standard was prepared at the end of October 2016. There were lots of comments with some suggestions from opponents. The suggestions were sent to the technical committee of the National FSC Working Group, which developed the second version of the standard, and now the document is at the public discussion stage. The information is posted at the FSC website, so any one can review the 300-page document, send comments and ideas, and only then a final version of the standard will be drawn. Supposedly, it will happen in June 2017. After that, the standard will be forwarded to the International FSC office. It is the most important period now, as you can still influence the wording of some indicators of the standard under development.
Comments of the Forest Dialogue participants regarding FSC certification process development
Draft of the Regional Forest Dialogue Final Report
