Friends of the Earth Rejects Forest Stewardship Council

Thanks to Dr Glenn Barry for this

- Major victory for Ecological Internet's campaign to end
ancient forest logging as key response to climate and
biodiversity crises

September 23, 2008
By Earth's Newsdesk, a project of Ecological Internet
http://www.ecoearth.info/newsdesk/


glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org

(Earth) -- Friends of the Earth (FoE) is the first major
international NGO to confirm they no longer support Forest
Stewardship Council (FSC) certification, which falsely
suggests primary and old-growth forest logging is desirable
and even sustainable. This is a major victory for those
including Ecological Internet (EI) and FSC-Watch[1] who have
courageously taken on large environmental interests using FSC
to greenwash ancient forest destruction.

FoE pioneered timber certification during the 1980s and was
one of FSC's founders, but FoE International in Amsterdam has
confirmed that it is now "reviewing" its membership of the
organization. FoE UK announced on their website[2] they are
"deeply concerned by the number of FSC certifications that are
now sparking controversy and threatening the credibility of
the scheme. We cannot support a scheme that fails to guarantee
high environmental and social standards. As a result we can no
longer recommend the FSC standard."

"FoE is to be commended for their courage in admitting all
forest certification schemes including FSC are failing
forests, climate and peoples globally. FSC plantation and
ancient forest logging standards have been shown to be a fraud
-- business as usual forest destruction. We welcome reports
that other European NGOs may follow FoE's lead, and demand
that Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace and WWF stop their
stonewalling and follow suit, or face escalating disruptive
protests" warns Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet's
President.

EI has long sought protection for all the Earth's remaining
primary and old-growth forests. These efforts were stymied by
large environmental bureaucracies falsely suggesting cutting
carbon and species rich, centuries old trees is an
environmental good. It became obvious the world's forests
could only be protected, and global ecological sustainability
achieved, if groups supporting FSC were confronted. Our
protest campaign launched last year, assisted by recent
overwhelming ecological science showing old-growth forests
continue to store and remove carbon and are essential to
fighting climate change[3].

More Information:
[1] For more information see http://www.fsc-watch.org/
[2] See their statement at:
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/faqs/sustainable_timber_fsc.html
[3] See earlier EI release at:
http://forests.org/blog/2008/09/feature-old-growth-carbon-
find.asp

###ENDS###

Dr. Glen Barry is a global spokesperson on behalf of global
environmental sustainability policy. Ecological Internet
provides the world's leading climate and environment portals
at http://www.climateark.org/ and http://www.ecoearth.info/
Dr. Barry frequently conducts interviews on the latest
climate, forest and water policy developments and can be
reached at: glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org, +1 (920) 664-
1965.

DISCUSS RELEASE:
http://www.rainforestportal.org/issues/2008/09/friends_of_the_earth_rejects_f.asp