Timber assurance schemes pass Government test

18 December 2006

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Timber assurance schemes pass Government test

Five schemes designed to combat illegal logging and protect forests worldwide have been given the Government seal of approval after a review to check their continuing effectiveness.

The first review of schemes, assessed by the Central Point of Expertise on Timber (CPET) as assuring government departments in the UK that they are buying timber from responsible sources, found that standards and procedures continue to merit their current CPET approval status.

Illegal logging costs developing countries worldwide around B#15billion a year in lost revenue, according to the World Bank.

Biodiversity Minister Barry Gardiner announced today that the Canadian Standards Association, Forest Stewardship Council, Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification and Sustainable Forestry Initiative will continue to be accepted as assurance of legally logged timber from sustainably managed forests.

The Malaysian Timber Certification Council scheme will continue to be accepted as assurance of legally logged timber. The Malaysian scheme was assessed as not quite meeting the CPET criteria for sustainability and is working to improve its standard in this respect.

Barry Gardiner said:

"Illegal logging degrades forests and damages the environment, leading to the loss of biodiversity. It hurts many of the world's poorest people who depend on forests for their livelihoods, robbing poor countries of revenues that should be used to develop their economies.

"We have a responsibility, as major purchasers of timber, to do what we can to ensure that timber is legal and from sustainably managed forests wherever possible. CPET is necessarily a desk based assessment of these schemes and their procedures as they cannot conduct forest based assessments around the globe. However, the UK is leading the world in public timber procurement policies.

"I am pleased that our rigorous review saw schemes responding positively to negative findings and making significant improvements to their requirements.

"The government is confident that the systems in place are robust and that these schemes provide credible assurance of responsible timber procurement. I urge forest owners and managers to adopt their standards. We will review the schemes again in 2008."

The full CPET Review is available at www.proforest.net/cpet/documents

Notes to editors

1. Supplying timber from legal sources is a standard condition of UK government contracts. Supplying timber from sustainable sources is optional but those that offer it are given preference when bids are evaluated, so it is important that the assurance given is credible before any bidder is given a competitive advantage.

2. In November 2004 the government announced that of the five forest certification schemes assessed against government contract requirements only two, the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), gave assurance of legal and sustainable timber sources.

The other three - PEFC, SFI and MTCC - passed the test for assuring legal sources. PEFC and SFI made changes to their scheme standards and were subsequently re-assessed as passing the CPET assurance test for sustainable forest management as well as legality.

3. The changes made by PEFC had to be adopted and implemented in 21 countries and so the Government put PEFC on probation for a period of six months to see if that was happening. A sample check at the end of 2005 found that some national standards did not appear to have fully adopted the new requirements for ensuring that environmental and social interest groups were adequately involved in the standard setting process and that consensus is achieved before decisions taken. The PEFC Council at its meeting in October 2006 adopted resolutions for clarifying PEFCBs guidance on achieving consensus when setting forest management standards and for the introduction of a panel of experts, including environmental and social interets, to scrutinise national standards prior to being submitted to PEFC for endorsement.

5. Approval of these five certification schemes does not mean that the Government will not accept other schemes or other forms of evidence but to be credible such alternative evidence would have to be independently verified as no less robust than the five approved schemes.

6. The full CPET Review is available at www.proforest.net/cpet/documents from Tuesday, 19 December.

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