24 May 2007Climate Ark / Rainforest Portal
For many years the international conservation group WWF has supported Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification that first-time logging of ancient primary and old-growth forests is "sustainable". Millions of hectares of intact, large rainforest ecosystems have been and are being heavily industrially logged for the first time with WWF and FSC's stamp of approval. Ecological Internet (EI) recently reported upon Samling of Malaysia's activities in Guyana under the name of Barama (1.3 million ha/3.2 million acres), which received significant international bank financing based upon assurances provided by WWF and an FSC certificate of good forest management. Sadly, WWF's partnering with this particular rainforest destroyer in Guyana is not at all unique. Similar large-scale, often illegal and highly socially and environmentally destructive logging of ancient forests in the Congo basin countries, Russia, and Indonesia continue with the blessing of WWF and FSC as their official policy. WWF's greenwashing, and propagation and subsidizing of the myth of "sustainable ancient forest logging", may be the greatest threat to the world's remaining ancient forests. WWF's unquestioning support for certified logging of ancient forests has placed them in the highly controversial position of supporting loggers against local protests, as well as at odds with ecological science's requirements for global forest and climate sustainability. Their efforts go well beyond promotion, as WWF's "Global Forest and Trade Network" (GFTN) program is highly likely accepting undisclosed amounts of money from industrial loggers to promote their certification to FSC standards. And they continue to advocate on their behalf even when these standards are not met. As evidence questioning their basic premise that industrial logging of millions of years old ecosystems is environmentally desirable or even possible continues to build, WWF has resorted to trying to cover-up the depth to which they are driving the ancient forest logging business. Indeed, WWF is acting like a Public Relations agency for destructive and criminal logging.WWF played a major role in promoting and gaining finance for the now 'suspended' and discredited FSC certificate of Barama in Guyana. You may recall their parent company, Samling Global Ltd., was recently listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange with support from Credit Suisse, HSBC and the Australian Maquarie Securities Ltd. Credit Suisse indicated they had participated on the advice of WWF. Two organizations representing indigenous peoples in the South American state of Guyana, the Amerindian Peoples’ Association (APA) and the Guyanese Organization of Indigenous Peoples (GOIP), are asking the Malaysian Samling timber group to immediately cease all logging operations on the titled lands of the Akawini Amerindian Village on the Pomeroon River. Barama Co. Ltd, the Guyanese subsidiary of Samling, is being accused of logging illegally on over 400,000 hectares of tropical rainforest outside its concessions and of operating on titled Amerindian lands without the consent of the communities. Janette Bulkan, a leading Guyanese rainforest advocate, has labeled Samling’s operations in Guyana “a new vicious variant of colonialism”.WWF once heralded the FSC certification of Barama -- the largest FSC certified tropical logging operation -- as a "record-setting accomplishment for tropical forest conservation in South America". WWF worked closely with the company for some time, providing technical advice and helping the company to get its certificate. Yet in January of this year, Barama had its certificate suspended. During certification evaluations in 2005-06 numerous violations of FSC criteria were found; including illegal operations, taxes not paid, an absence of commitment to sustainable forest management and failure to comply with FSC policy and intent on partial certification of large ownerships, over-cutting, absence of environmental impact permit, failure to demarcate conservation zones in logging blocks, and failure to manage forest of acknowledged high conservation value amongst others. After first intensely defending Barama and its cancelled certification, WWF is now in full damage control mode, trying its best to distance itself from Samling. This might be written off as a one time poor decision by WWF; yet troublingly, it is clear that WWF have a systematic program of working with some of the leading forest-destroyers on the planet, have refused to say how much money they are taking from them, and that they are subsequently defending these companies to the hilt.In highly similar cases, WWF is also supporting questionable certification of primary forest logging by Terneyles in Russia (one of the largest loggers in Russia with 1.4 million hectares/3.5 million acres). Early this year WWF claimed that there was a "revolution" going on in Russian forestry, and Terneyles was singled out as an example. Amazingly this glowing recommendation was given in the absence of required certification inspection and surveillance reports on Terneyles covering the last two years. In the absence of such essential components of FSC certification, WWF's statement that Terneyles is "committed to responsible forestry" is mere conjecture. WWF must reveal how much money Terneyles has paid them in order to join the Russian Forest and Trade Network. It appears that after taking their money, WWF may have successfully lobbied for Terneyles both to keep their certificate, and for anything that challenges the validity of this certificate to be suppressed.
Meanwhile, WWF's partner in the Congo, Danzer (one of Congo's biggest loggers with ~2.6 million ha/6.4 million acres) has also taken measures to try and silence local protestors by bringing court cases against them. And then there is WWF's ‘partnership’ with the murderous Perhutani plantation company in Indonesia, which is vehemently opposed by local environmentalists and human rights activists. Along with the World Bank, WWF has helped to hand out 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) of new logging concessions in the Peruvian Amazon. This is just a small sample of WWF's 'partnerships' with logging companies. In fact dozens of logging companies have paid WWF to 'join' GFTN's PR campaign. These companies are together destroying and diminishing 24 million hectares (59.3 million acres) of forest.WWF is betraying the global ancient forest protection movement. Its embrace of questionable certifications provides greenwashing to allow industrial ancient rainforest logging to continue. WWF and other ancient forest logging apologists must commit to working to End Ancient Forest Logging -- a complete cessation of industrial development in the world's remaining primary and old-growth forests. This is a global imperative given looming climate change, species extinction and continued indigenous abuses by rapacious "legal" and illegal industrial loggers. Ultimately, just like any big multinational corporation, as it seems to be only money that now interests WWF, we have to make it cost them more to have these deals with logging companies than they get from the deals themselves. Protest against a World Without ancient Forests (WWF) and demand they cease their support for industrial scaled logging of primary and old-growth forests.
