PEFC Endorses Rio Forest Certification Declaration

16 November 2010 News

“While the forest certification movement can certainly be proud of the achievements of the past twenty years, we realize it is mainly forest owners in developed countries that benefit from certification,” said William Street, Chairman of PEFC International.

“Much of the certified area is located in the Northern Hemisphere, and it remains challenging to provide access to forest certification especially to locally-controlled forests in tropical countries, managed by families and communities that depend on their resources for their livelihoods.”

Forest certification is recognized as one of the most important voluntary mechanism promoting sustainable forest management, yet there are significant barriers for forest managers in developing countries, such as a lack of capacity to undergo certification audits and maintain operations to a certification standard.

“Overcoming these and other barriers requires collaboration among all forest stakeholders, forest certification systems, CSD Major Groups, and governments” emphasized Mr. Street. “While activities by different stakeholders are usually driven by the same objective of promoting sustainable forest management, they may have detrimental effects if they don’t consider their overall, global impact.”

“The linkage between deforestation and poverty is strong, compelling, and in need of specific attention by all forest stakeholders. The same is true for the linkage between deforestation, climate change and loss of biodiversity.  By recognizing  the importance of these interrelationships and beginning the process of codifying them into forest certification standards that have been proven to make a real difference on the ground, we can achieve our vision of  people living in harmony with forests as well as managing them sustainably.  ”

To enable forest stakeholders to better assess the overall effects of their actions, to strengthen joint initiatives, to encourage the pooling of limited resources, and to promote complementary activities, PEFC has endorsed the Rio Forest Certification Declaration, which contains ten principles intended to guide the future development of sustainable forest management and forest certification around the world.  

The Declaration emphasizes that “[t]he challenge of safeguarding the environmental, social and economic benefits that the world’s forests provide is critical for life on earth. It requires a world in which people manage forests sustainably, a world that recognizes the integral and interdependent nature of our planet, a world that acknowledges and values the significance of rural communities, indigenous peoples, and families that depend on forests for their livelihoods.”

“After twenty years of forest certification, only one percent of the global supply of wood from certified forests originates from the tropical forests, forests that are among the most biodiverse ecosystems on our planet and support an estimates 60 million indigenous people who depend on forests for their subsistence. Society rightly expects forest stakeholders to collectively act to promote sustainable forest management in the tropics, and the Declaration will hopefully serve as a framework for all and provide guidance that will improve our actions,” concluded Mr. Street.