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FSC must engage in carbon
30 June 2011
 Greenpeace has no doubts: FSC has an obligation to enter the climate change scene; the sooner they are involved the better.
“FSC can’t afford NOT to engage in the climate change discussion. FSC has to face it head on and be aware of all the pitfalls. FSC is a scheme dealing with forest management so FSC clearly needs to deal with forest carbon”, states Dr. Christoph Thies from Greenpeace International. “It’s about FSC’s credibility, it’s about getting beyond timber mono-dependency and it is about conserving High Conservation Values (HCVs)”.
“Certified forests are already making carbon claims. That train has already left the station; it’s time for FSC to jump on”.
Credibility at stake
Mauricio Voivodic, Executive Director of Imaflora, cautions FSC to not try to quantify carbon levels: “There is no direct measurement of carbon stock and other greenhouse gasses connected with the FSC certification of a forest”.
Greenpeace supports that at a minimum, carbon levels are restored: “FSC must demonstrate that FSC certified forests do maintain their carbon stock levels over time. Many forest operations have an accumulated loss on carbon stock. FSC operations should demonstrate that they do not have this”, says Dr. Thies.
“In secondary forests, there’s often a severe carbon depletion compared to primary forest. FSC-certified operations should to some extend strive to restore this carbon. As an example, many European forests only have 50% of their original carbon stock. There’s plenty of room for improvement without necessarily going back to a 100% stock”.
Social issues are often overlooked in the climate debate. Social North member Chris van der Goot raises social safeguards as essential for climate schemes to offer security for local communities. “We need to take a cautious approach, there are many pitfalls. But I think there’s a future in ecosystem services, adding more public value to the forest ecosystem”.
Stay out of carbon accounting
 “Accounting and off-setting should be handled outside the scope of FSC. There are other standards and systems for this already developed and the whole idea of trading carbon credits from forest are questioned by many”, states Mr. Voivodic.
Greenpeace would like to see a funding mechanism, but are also opposed to the current model where credits are sold on a market basis. “We would like to see economic incentives being better regulated. We want to have a model of a publicly managed money stream, where enough funds are available to support the maintenance and restoration of carbon in a consistent way along with conservation and restoration of biodiversity, social issues and other issues that are beyond carbon – this can be done by applying FSC”, says Dr. Thies.
A credible rewarding scheme is also wanted by Mr. Van der Goot who said, “It’s very important that the revenue streams don’t end up in the “higher layers” of the structures – administration, bureaucracy, and other cost can eat up all the benefits. I think FSC should position themselves as a rewarding system to promote the use of revenues where there is a need: in the local communities and the forests!”
Related articles:
Carbon investors turn to forestry (27/5 2011)
Study unveils strong business case for responsible forestry (11/12/2010)
Report: FSC an asset for timberland investment in Canada (2/2 2011)
Cancún climate talks led to sound forest deal (15/12/2010)
Big brands disclose their forest footprint (15/2 2010)
Ethical bank targets FSC business in developing countries (19/1 2010) |
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