Great Bear Rainforest Essays

Great Bear Rainforest Essays Great Bear Rainforest Essay Great Bear Rainforest Essay This is where anyone who knows the industry or is at least a little environmentally aware realises that something is not quite right. Interfor has been the subject of intense protesting and disapproval by a variety of environmental organisations, including Green peace for their destructive logging practices in the Great Bear forest in British Columbia. Interfor says it is working towards sustainable harvesting in the Great Bear Rainforest, said Tamara Stark, Green peace forest campaign co-ordinator in Canada. The company is spending a considerable amount of money on public relations, trying to convince customers that its logging practices are second-to-none. Weve got the pictures to prove its shoddy logging is a long way from qualifying as even second rate.' [11] Green peaces claims that is has the pictures for proof are backed up they the posted pictures on their site, and make the companies claims that it is environmentally sustainable sound quite hollow. Another example of problems with the SFI certification claiming sustainability are made apparent when you do more research into the companies that have been given certification by the organisation and are still in good standing. : Pacific Lumber, also known as Maxxam, has been a participant in good standing in the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) of the American Forest Paper Association since 1996. Yet in recent years, Pacific Lumber has become notorious for its role in the Headwaters controversy over clear cutting of ancient redwoods. In addition, in November 1998 its license to practice forestry in California was suspended for several months, after the company had been cited numerous times by inspectors for violating state forestry practice rules.[12] So what is going on here? How is it that these supposedly certified companies are still certified when the slightest bit of research turns up incredibly environmentally unsustainable evidence. To see the answer to this question one only needs to re-examine the first sentence of the certification report. Pacific Lumber, also known as Maxxam, has been a participant in good standing in the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) of the American Forest Paper Association since 1996.[13] The important four words in the sentence are American Forest Paper Association. The SFI is in fact an industry run certification association, and the industry set out, principles for sustainable forestry are far too broad and open-ended to be meaningful. The program has few fixed requirements or benchmarks for measuring a companys performance. Nor does it require any independent review of its members claims. And it allows every company to decide for itself how to tailor the guidelines to its own forests. So vague are the SFIs guidelines, in fact, that virtually any company could belong. Environmental organisations have denounced the SFI and pointed out the coincidence that SFI came on the scene just as environmentalists had thrown their support behind a truly rigorous, independent system for certifying well-managed forests? The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), awards seals of approval for environmentally and socially responsible forest management practices.[14] The FSC is unique in the fact that it is the only certification program that exists right now that has the endorsement of environmental organisations. What is also a telling sign of its truly sustainable nature is the fact that the industry is calling on the FSC to relax its standards so that more companies may receive certification. [15] It is important to note though that of the above companies mentioned Home Depot and IKEA are demanding wood with FSC certification and not SFI certification. Another company known for its less then environmentally friendly practices has however taken steps and received FSC certification and plans to continue to do so for its other forests. Irvings Allagash Woodlands have been awarded certification as a well-managed forest under the rules of the non-profit Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). The 569,520-acre woodland in Maines Aroostook County was the subject of a year-long assessment by an independent team of scientists and forestry experts under the auspices of Scientific Certification Systems, an FSC-accredited certification body.[16] The fact that Irving, has gotten its standards in Maine at least up to an acceptable level speaks well of the company and its movement towards environmentally conscious forestry practices, whether or not Irvings Canadian operation will be certified is not, however, discussed on the website. Further research on the Canadian Forestry Service website shows however that Irving had its Black Brook, New Brunswick forest operation certified by the FSC in October 1998. The rest of its Canadian operations have only however been certified to ISO standards, which as noted does not have the support of environmentalists, and are not considered to be environmentally sustainable. The FSC standards are what sets the program apart from the other certification initiatives, the standards range from requiring forest managers to show a long term commitment to sustainable forestry, compliance with all international treaties in signatory countries, respect for indigenous peoples rights and that they control forestry practices on their land, the view that economic viability must be long-term economic viability, maintenance of High Conservation Value Forests, and that plantations should promote the protection, restoration and conservation of natural forests, and not increase pressures on natural forests.[17] This has lead to the FSC being a much more exclusive list of organisations, due to the unwilling ness of many companies to submit to the FSC standards. Greenpeace and WWF recognize that the Forest Stewardship Council is currently the only system ensuring credible certification of good forest management. The statutes and requirements of the FSC clearly reflect international agreements reached at the Earth summit in Rio and thereafter.[18] It is the even implementation of these standards and the problem of how to evaluate all these criteria that has another party, the forest auditors speaking up over the difficulty of truly measuring many of these qualifications laid out by the various certification systems. The areas of management practices such as the level of site degradation, stocking levels, and fibre utilisation are indicators that are fairly simple to monitor, however, for objectives such as maintaining healthy wildlife populations, or water quality, auditing without standards or accepted levels of performance becomes a significant challenge.[19] While at first it may be easy to assume that that isnt that much of a challenge at all, one then has not considered such factors as regional differences, natural cycles in wildlife, etc. make the measuring process much more complex. In many areas, provincial legislation and certification initiatives for sustainable forest management systems are ahead of the science.'[20] There are also the questions of how much constitutes a problem, if for example five hanging culverts in one forest seems to be fine due to the make up of the soil in that area, what then do you do if five hanging culverts in an other area with less supporting soil is a problem. How then do you have a certification system that is uniform when in fact the biosystems in question are anything but? IT is important to realize just what we are currently able to verify in the field. Science has not developed to the point where auditors can measure the actual results systems will be established to document the intended outcome, but this is only a forecast.[21] As there are no established practices and concrete correlations between specific eco-forestry practices and their environmental outcomes the realisation as to whether or not specific practices are effective cannot presently be measured. The ultimate impact of sustainable forest management activities in the forest can only be assessed over a period of decades or perhaps centuries. The final group that needs to be examined within the context of a disscusion of the state of sustainable certification of Canadian forests is the government of Canada it self. The Canadian Forest Service (CFS) is the government entity in charge of the care of Canadian forests and its mission statements reads, The CFS promotes the sustainable development of Canadas forests and competitiveness of the Canadian Forest Sector.[22] The CFS is now implementing a number of programs along with the provinces to move Canadian forests into a sustainable mode of operations. The CFS received a less then favourable review when the final report of the Senate Sub-Committee on the Boreal Forest: Competing Realities: The Boreal Forest at Risk was released on June 28, 1999.[23] The senate committee stated that Canadians must find better ways to manage the boreal forest to meet the competing realities of preserving the resource, maintaining the lifestyle and values of boreal communities, extracting economic wealth and preserving ecological values.[24] This of course is the bureaucratically polite way of saying that what we have been doing in Canada in the way of sustainable forest management has fallen short of the kind of environmentally sustainable practices necessary to promote long term preservation of the Canadian boreal forests. Indeed the report stated as much with the following line, Portions of Canadas remaining undisturbed boreal forest and its areas of old growth are now at risk from both climate change and over cutting. The committee concluded that the demands being placed on Canadas forests can no longer be met under the current system of management.[25] The CFS seems to be trying to rectify this problem through the promotion of sustainable forestry certification, sixteen million hectares of Canadian forest have been certified under one of the three certification programs in Canada, being the Forest Stewardship Council, the International Standards Organisation, or the Canadian Standards Organisation. The government is very pleased with the fact that its certification push is going ahead. However this is where the difference between the FSC and all the other non-environmentally endorsed certification programs comes into play. Out of the sixteen million hectares only two hundred and twelve thousand hectares have been certified by the FSC. This includes the one hundred and ninety one thousand hectares of Irvings FSC certified land in New Brunswick. This fact remembered in the context that the other certification systems have been considered too weak, or completely useless by environmental organisations makes the push towards certification by the Canadian government seem less then effective. It is also important to realise that more then half of the sixteen million hectares of forest had been certified before the report of the senate sub committee report was released stating that the demands being placed on Canadas forests can no longer be met under the current system of management,[26] this same system of management that, somehow, in spite of the fact that it is considered to be unsustainable in by the criteria in the report, has received certification by the ISO and the CSA. This apparent contradiction, about sums up the position of the Canadian government when it comes to what it is doing with regard to the sustainable management of its forests. The certification process in Canada should however at all levels be considered a good thing, as one of my articles put it, the fact that the industry is doing something at all is a good sign. The problem now is getting the standards all to the point where they are truly sustainable. Environmental organisations and the FSC are adamant about keeping certification at the level at which the FSC has set it. It is now up to consumers to give industry and government the added push to switch their practices to sustainable levels, it was the push of consumers which started this process and the push of consumers that will continue this process, until then one must be educated to know if the certification sticker on the wood that they are purchasing means something, or is just another piece of packaging garbage. Bibliography References Anonymous, Certifying forests poses challenges Wood Technology; San Francisco; Jan/Feb 1999; Volume: 126. Issue: 1. Start Page: 12-14 Anonymous, Champion to open forests to third-party sustainability reviews Wood Technology; San Francisco; Jan/Feb 1999; Volume: 126. Issue: 1. Start Page: 12 Anonymous, It aint necessarily so The Amicus Journal; New York; Spring 2000; Anonymous; Volume: 22. Issue: 1. Start Page:6. Anonymous, McDonalds wants forestry practice info. Pulp Paper; San Francisco; May 1999; Anonymous; Volume: 73. Issue: 5. Start Page: 23.