pefc newsletter 34 general assembly november 2006

8/9/2019 PEFC Newsletter 34 General Assembly November 2006

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Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes No 34 - November 2006

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ContentsChairman’s Reception at the WorldForestry Centre

Chairman’s report – Extracts

Keynote speech by Peter Seligmann,Conservation International

New Guide for the Avoidance ofcontroversial timber

New Non Wood Forest Products Guide

European Tissue Symposium becomesExtraordinary Member of PEFC

Bridging document for ITTO guidelines

Election of new Chairmen and Board ofDirectors

PEFC Council honours outgoing PEFCFounding, First Vice Chairman andDirectors

Changes to PEFC Councildocumentation

Endorsement of the Austriancertification system

Field trip to certified forests

Special General Assembly Issue

Forest Certification Systems meetfor PEFC Annual General Assembly

Guest speakers, invited guests, representatives of international

organisations as well as PEFC Council Extraordinary Members

and national delegates of the 31 member countries gathered forthe 10th PEFC Council General Assembly in the World ForestryCentre in Portland, Oregon (USA). During the three day

meeting from 26 to 28 October 2006, the participants met for

workshops, elections and decisions on PEFC’s future andparticipated in and received first hand experience of certified

forests in Oregon. Details of the General Assembly and

surrounding events are covered in this PEFC Council

Newsletter Special.

A representative from the paper industry recently said that

“PEFC is the next big thing.” And indeed the demand from

users of forest certification and businesses especially in thepaper sector is enormous, and growing rapidly.

What is the secret behind these developments? Of course

there is the commitment of companies and users to theresponsible procurement of timber and paper. Government and

corporate procurement policies explicitly specify PEFC certified

products. Producers of responsibly sourced raw materials havestarted or are in the process of labelling all their PEFC certified

products with the PEFC logo.

But there are also other factors that decisively contribute to thecurrent developments: Two years ago PEFC had about 50

million hectares, now we are close to the 200 million mark, a

fourfold increase. Forest certification within the PEFC

framework has become a global movement and PEFC is the

common “currency” between the national forest certification

systems, assuring compatibility and equally high standards in

the international market place. (Continued on page 2)

Editorial by Ben Gunneberg

Secretary General



PEFC Newsletter - Promoting Sustainable Forest Management For more info: www.pefc.org ( ) For full details of news, press releases, reports etc. see website above

No 34 – November 2006

Key note speech by PeterSeligmann from Conservation

InternationalMr Peter Seligmann, Co-founder, Chairman of

the Board, and CEO of Conservation

International addressed the participants of the

General Assembly.

Peter Seligmann, Conservation International, speakingat the PEFC Council General Assembly in Oregon

In his speech, Mr Seligmann underlined the

importance of forest certification and the use ofcertified products to promote the sustainable

management of forests.

Future challenges included how to increase the

area of sustainable forest management. The

inclusion of small land owners and local peoples

in forest certification as well as making the efforts

relevant to issues such as carbon trading were

cited.

Mr Seligmann emphasised forest certification’s

capacity to reach out to society and at the sametime ensuring the well being of local peoples.

The real challenge for the environment in general

was to involve everyone and he congratulated

PEFC for its successful involvement of all

stakeholders in its processes. He underlined thatco-operation not confrontation is the method

Conservation International uses to reach its

environmental goals.

Mr Seligmann has led Conservation International

from its days as a small group with lofty ideals toan international conservation leader with

activities across more than 40 countries on fourcontinents.

For information on Conservation International

visit www.conservation.org.

(Continued from page 1)

The availability of certified wood has increaseddramatically and now accounts for 25% of the

world’s industrial round wood production, the

overwhelming majority of it PEFC certified.

We receive requests from companies from all

over the world, who want to become PEFC

certified, and more national initiatives, ENGOs

and associations in the forest, timber and paper

sector are seeking to participate in the PEFC

Council’s activities.

In Asian markets, for example, enterprises have

started to see the market advantages of PEFC

and increasingly choose a PEFC Chain of

Custody certification. The decisions taken by the

General Assembly, including the incorporation of

the ITTO benchmark study results; the new guidefor the Avoidance of timber from Controversial

Sources and the incorporation of Non Wood

Forest Products in PEFC certification, willcontribute to advance the development of PEFC

to meet customer requirement for the promotion

of sustainable forest management.

Ben Gunneberg

Secretary GeneralPEFC Council

The next PEFC Council GeneralAssembly will be held in Munich,

Germany from 4 to 6 October 2007.





PEFC General Assembly 2006Extracts from the Chairman’s Reporton activities in 2005 / 2006

In last 12 months PEFC hascontinued to expand with

members in currently 31

countries. PEFC’s certifiedarea globally has increased

by almost 65 million

hectares, a growth of morethan 50%, and the number

of PEFC Chain of Custody

holders has increased by

more than a fifth. PEFC is

rapidly approaching the

mark of 200 million hectaresof PEFC certified forests,

with more than 18,000 PEFC

logo users and more than2,800 certified enterprises.

Growing Awareness andcall for PEFCPEFC continues to be the

world’s largest resource of

certified wood and more andmore governments have

issued procurement policies

and statements, which

include PEFC certified

products. In the past year

alone this has includedBelgium, Japan, Denmark,

the United Kingdom and the

EU Parliament.

ICFPA, the International

Council of Forest and PaperAssociations has issued aStatement on Sustainability

and the European Toy

Manufacturers, called for the

use of PEFC, to name but a

few. There is a growing

demand for PEFC certified paper and a greater

awareness of PEFC with TV and newspaper

coverage in most countries.

PEFC has particularly been praised for its social

criteria as the example by a German trade

union’s foundation for sustainability and social

society, shows.PEFC PublicationsTwo new PEFC Position Papers have been

published, on, Tribal and Indigenous people,

local people, local communities and forest

dependent communities and on a Phased

Approach to Forest Certification .

PEFC published its first Annual Review for 2005,

showing PEFC’s global situation and activities.

Documentation on the Avoidance of timber from

Controversial Sources, the inclusion of ITTO inPEFC and a new option for Non Wood Forest

Products have been developed.

PEFC membershipWe have received a joint new membership

application from two joint timber certification

councils in Russia and an application forExtraordinary Membership from ETS, the

European Tissue Symposium. (See further

details in this Newsletter)

PEFC seminarsThe National Secretaries meeting in Spain

provided the opportunity for the exchange of

ideas, presentations and training. Subjects

included financing, fundraising, market access,

technical issues and promotions.

Chain of Custody seminars with the involvement

of the PEFC Council have taken place in Japan,

Belgium and the UK further increasing PEFC’s

presence and visibility in the market place, and

similar events were organized at national level in

other countries.PEFC endorsementCertification systems submitted or undergoing

endorsement or re-endorsement during the yearincluded: Austria, Czech Republic, Estonia,

France, Gabon, Germany, Lithuania, Norway,

Poland, Slovenia, Sweden, the UK, US/Canada(SFI) and Switzerland being re-instated to the

endorsed status.

Henri Plauche Gillon, Chairman PEFC Council

PEFC CouncilFounding ChairmanHenri Plauche Gillon

“PEFC Council is rapidly

approaching

the 200 million

hectares mark.

During the last

12 months,

there has been

a tremendous growth of

PEFC in

certified area and certified

businesses as

well as a

rapidly

increasing

choice of PEFC

by private and

governmental

users of forest certification.”





Russian forest certificationinitiatives merge under PEFC

The PEFC Council membercountries approved the joint

application by the two

Russian initiatives to

transfer the nationalmembership of the current

PEFC Council member, the

National Council of Voluntary Forest Certification Council in Russia (RSFC) to the Partnership on

Development of PEFC Forest Certification in

Russia (“PEFC Russia”). The RSFC, a PEFC

Council member since October 2004, and theRussian National Council for Forest Certification

(RNCFC) decided to create an umbrella

organisation, to represent both Russian forest

certification systems in PEFC.

For details see PEFC Council Press Release 15

September 2006 “Russian forest certification

initiatives sign historic agreement”.

Austrian certification system

gains re-endorsement The Austrian forest certification system has

gained PEFC re-endorsement for a second 5-

year period. Chairman Henri Plauche Gillon

presented the official endorsement certificate toMr Felix Montecuccoli, representing PEFC

Austria, in a ceremony during the General

Assembly.

Chairman Stefan Schenker, Land & Forestowners Austria,Ben Gunneberg, PEFC Council, Felix Montecuccoli, PEFCAustria, Henri Plauche Gillon PEFC Council presenting the

endorsement certificate of PEFC Austria

Guide for the avoidance ofcontroversial timber

To help timber and paper companies preventwood from controversial sources find its way into

their products, the PEFC Council has developed

a new mandatory guide for the Avoidance of

Controversial Sources . The guide introducessafeguard mechanisms against procuring illegally

logged wood and complements the international

PEFC Chain of Custody wood tracking system.

The scope and the intensity of the safeguard

checks depends on the risk of procuring timber

from illegal harvesting. Certified material from

other certification systems, such as FSC, isconsidered as not requiring further checks.

The new guide, which forms Appendix 7 of theinternational PEFC Chain of Custody standard,

was approved by the PEFC Council General

Assembly and is available at www.pefc.org >

Documentation > Technical Documentation >

Annex 4.

New PEFC Non Wood Forest

Products Guide

Non Wood Forest Products (NWFP) can now betraded under PEFC. The PEFC Council members

decided to create a new option for NWFP, as part

of PEFC’s International Chain of Custody.

The new PEFC guide will allow companies to

market products, such as berries and

mushrooms, which come from PEFC certified

forests, with the PEFC logo.

Non Wood Forest Products in PEFC do not

include forest related services, such as tourism

and sports. Neither are tangible or non tangible

products and raw materials, whose origin cannot

be linked to a specific forest property, such asanimals, birds, air and water, able to be marketed

under the new option.

The guide is available as a new Appendix 8 toPEFC’s Chain of Custody, at www.pefc.org >

Documentation > PEFC Technical Document >

Annex 4.





New Extraordinary Member:European Tissue Symposium

The European Tissue SymposiumETS has been unanimously accepted

as a new Extraordinary Member of

the PEFC Council.

Mr Phil Mogel from ETS

presented the application of

the European Tissue

Symposium at the PEFCCouncil General Assembly.

ETS’ member companies

represent the majority of the

tissue production in the EUFor further details on ETS and its member

companies visit www.europeantissue.com.

PEFC prepares ground forcertification in ITTO countries

The PEFC Council adopted the following ITTO

guidelines (International Tropical Timber

Organization) as a benchmark for theendorsement of forest certification systems of

tropical countries:

ITTO guidelines on the sustainable management of natural tropical forests

(1992)

ITTO guidelines on the conservation of

biological diversity in tropical

production forests (1993)

ITTO guideline for the establishment and sustainable management of

planted tropical forests (1993)

The PEFC Council decision was based on a

study by Savcor Indufor, comparing the ITTOGuidelines with the PEOLG (Pan European

Operational Level Guidelines).

PEFC honours outgoing PEFCChairmen and Directors

The outgoing PEFC Council Founding Chairman,Mr Henri Plauche Gillon, and the First Vice

Chairman, Mr Hannu Valtanen (in absentia),

were honoured in a ceremony during the General

Assembly. Thanking them for their long-timeservice and achievements for PEFC they were

presented with certificates recognizing their

outstanding work in establishing PEFCcertification as the largest forest certification

system globally.

The new PEFC Council Chairman, Michael Clark thanking

outgoing Chairman, Henri Plauche Gillon for his outstandingservice and achievements for PEFC

The PEFC Councilthanked both Chairmenwith a farewell present,

a wine barrel made fromPEFC certified wood bythe international winebarrel producer SeguinMoreau.

Outgoing First Vice Chairman, HannuValtanen of the PEFC Council, who wasunable to attend the General Assembly

in Portland

The PEFC Council also thanked Mr Josef Barton,

Marian Freiherr von Gravenreuth and Mr Ulf

Österblom, who ended their terms as Directors ofthe PEFC Council Board at the General

Assembly.





New Chairman, Vice Chairmanand Directors for the Board

The PEFC Council General Assembly elected MrMichael Clark as the new Chairman of the PEFC

Council for a three-year period.

Mr Antti Sahi was elected as 1st Vice Chairman

of the PEFC Council for a one-year period. Mr

Björn Andrén, Mr Hans Drielsma and Mr Felix

Montecuccoli were elected to the PEFC Council

Board of Directors for a three-year period and MrAndrei Frolov, Mr Sébastien Genest, and Mr Paul

Wooding to the PEFC Council Board of Directors

for a two year period.

The new members join the following current

Board members: Mr Bob Simpson (Vice

Chairman), Mrs Kathy Bradley, Professor HansKöpp, Mr Luis Leal and Mr Willian Luddy.

Founding Chairman Mr Henri Plauche Gillon, 1st

Vice Chairman Hannu Valtannen, Mr JosefBarton, Marian Freiherr von Gravenreuth and Mr

Ulf Österblom have ended their election terms

(see separate article).

The background information below was provided

by the new Board members.

Michael CLARK

Chairman

Term of Office 2006-2009

Michael Clark has now

served two years in PEFC

Council Board of Directors

and is also on the board of

PEFC UK Ltd, having served

as chairman in 2005/06. He is a member of the

PEFC Council Board’s Market Acceptance

Committee and has been responsible formanaging the PEFC strategic communications

project in the UK. He is employed as a Vice-

President within M-real Corporation’s ConsumerPackaging Division.

Michael has been actively involved with forest

certification issues since 1994, representing the

interests of his company in negotiations with

members of the WWF 1995+ group and with the

main ENGOs, having made a number of

conference presentations and contributed articlesto the trade press.

Michael has worked as a senior executive in the

UK with the Finnish paper and board industry

since 1984 and as a past president of the UK

paper Agents Association and a former council

member of the UK Confederation of Paper

Industries, has been involved representing theinterest of the paper sector on forestry issues

with the UK Government and other industry

bodies. He is currently also President of Pro

Carton International, a group representing theinterests of the European carton and carton

board industries at European and national levels.

Antti SAHI

Vice Chairman

Term of Office: 2006-2007

Mr Sahi graduated in forestry

(forest management) from

Helsinki University in 1981.

First he worked as a teacher

at Kuru Forest Training School but since 1982 hehas worked in different duties in private forestry

organisations in Finland. He joined first as a

District Forest Officer and then as a Chief ofTraining at Pirkanmaa Forest Center.

Since 1988 he has worked for forest owners

organisations. 1998 -1995 he worked as amanager of the Regional Forest Owners Union

Pirkanmaa and since 1995 in the Central Unionof Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners

MTK. He worked first as Chief of Development,

then Director of Finance and since 2003 as

Forest Director. Because of these different duties

he has gained a broad experience in forestry. He

is a representative of family forest owners in

several national forest policy bodies andorganisations. He has also worked in several

international working groups.





Björn ANDRÉN

Director

Term of Office: 2006-2009Mr Björn Andrén is a member

of the PEFC Sweden Boardof Directors.

He is employed as Managing

Director of Holmen Skog AB with responsibilityfor Forestry and Wood Supply to the Swedish

Holmen Industries.

Björn holds key positions in various sectororganizations. He serves among others as the

Chairman of the Forest Committee of theSwedish Forest Industries, on the Board ofDirectors of the Forest Research Institute,

Skogforsk, and on the Board of the Forest

Faculty of the Swedish University for Agricultural

Sciences, SLU.

He is also a member of the Royal Swedish

Academy of Agricultural and Forestry, KSLA. He

has specific interest in long term and strategic

forestry issues with connection to Sustainable

Forest Management.

Björn has made great contributions to develop

PEFC to match the demand from both small and

large forest owners in Sweden.

J. Hans DRIELSMA

Director


Hans Drielsma is Executive

General Manager of ForestryTasmania, the government

owned business enterprise

which manages Tasmania'sState forests, where he has responsibility for

resources, planning, environmental management

and forest research. He has been involved in

forest certification since 1998 as Chair of the

Australian Forestry Standard Steering Committee

established to develop the Australian Forestry

Standard, and subsequently as Chair and then

Director of Australian Forestry Standard Limited,

the PEFC National Governing Body in Australia.

In that capacity, he has attended each PEFC

General Assembly since 2001, and in recenttimes has been instrumental in the development

of a more active multi-nation promotion of PEFC

in the Asian region. He is a professional forester

with post-graduate qualifications in forest policyand natural resources sociology, and a Fellow of

the Institute of Foresters of Australia.

Andrey V. FROLOV

Director


Vice-president of the Union

of Timber manufacturers and

exporters of Russia, Member

of the Union board, Andrey

has been involved in the

PEFC process in Russia since 2001.

Sébastien GENEST

DirectorTerm of Office: 2006-2008

Sébastien is the Chairman of

France Nature Environmentthe French National

Federation of some 3000 local and regional

environmental NGOs. A member of the HighCouncil for Forestry, Forest Products and wood

processing and its Committee on Forest policy,

Sébastien is also on the Board of the National

Office of Forests and is a director of PEFCFrance.

From an early age, Sébastien has been involved

in numerous environmental organisations dealing

with the study and protection of nature. His main

interests are in the protection of the forest

heritage and to promote forest management in

France and abroad that respects the

environmental and biological diversity. He haswritten several papers on the need to integrate





biodiversity in forest practises and policies to

translate intentions and theories for Sustainable

Forest Management into concrete applications.

Sébastien has served on the PEFC CouncilBoard of Directors since 2001.

Felix MONTECUCCOLI


Director

Felix Montecuccoli studied

forestry and he worked indifferent positions in the

Austrian Federation ofLand and Forest OwnersAssociation – Land & Forst Betriebe Österreich.

In 2005 he was elected as president of this

organisation.

Mr Montecuccoli is a forest owner and forest

manager of a family forest estate with about 940

hectares, therefore he is also involved in various

aspectss of forest certification.

Paul WOODING

Director


Paul Wooding received a

Bachelor of Science in

Forestry (BSF) from the

University of BritishColombia in 1975 and has

been a registered professional Forester (RPF)

with the association of BC Forest professionalssince 1977. He held various forestry positions

with BC forest products limited between 1975

and 1984.

In June 1984 he joined Canadian Forest

Products Ltd (Canfor) as Administrative Forester,

served as divisional Forester at the company’s

Englewood Logging Division from 1991 to 1992

and is currently Manager, certification and market

support with corporate Forestry.

Welcoming address of the newPEFC Council Chairman

"Having established what ispresently the world's largest

resource of certified wood raw

material, PEFC will continue to

drive for increased certification,but will now also increase its

focus on promoting forest

certification in the market place, encouragingcompanies and users of certified products to do

the same," said the newly elected Chairman of

the PEFC Council, Michael Clark.

"As United Nations statistics show, some 25% ofthe world's industrial roundwood production is

currently certified, the overwhelming majority to

PEFC endorsed certification systems. This

represents a huge potential for further expansion

of the certification process and provides an

opportunity to make a significant difference to the

sustainable management of the world's forests",

said Mr Clark. "However, we in PEFC can onlyachieve these goals if everyone in the supply

chain promotes certification and uses PEFC in

their marketing and communication activities. Iam already very encouraged to see, for example,

that a large number of major paper companies

have introduced coordinated programmes for the

active training of their personnel and the

implementation of chain of custody certification

and logo licensing for the marketing of labelled

products. Equally, a number of governments

have developed sustainable procurement policies

that recognise the value of certified wood andpaper products and which provide important

potential policy guidelines for both the public and

private sectors."

PEFC Council documentationSeveral changes to the PEFC Council TechnicalDocumentation were approved by the PEFC

members, among them clarifications on wording

and other editorial changes. The new documents

are available at www.pefc.org >Documentation

>PEFC Technical Documentation.





Chairman’s Reception

On 26th

October, the

Chairman of the PEFCCouncil, Mr Henri Plauche

Gillon, welcomed guestsand representatives from

the 31 PEFC member

countries to a Welcome

Reception at the World

Forestry Centre in

Portland, Oregon.

The Chairman thanked the Sustainable Forestry

Board, the US American PEFC member

organisation, the American Tree Farm Systemand the Sustainable Forestry Initiative for hosting

this year’s General Assembly.

Mr Plauche Gillon also thanked the international

PEFC certified wine barrel producer Seguin

Moreau, with PEFC certified branches in North

America and Europe, for sponsoring the event.

FelixMontecucolli

(PEFCAustria),

Kathy Abusow(Canada),Mario Broll

and AntonioBrunori (both

PEFC Italia)

David Morman, Oregon Department of Forestry, Liz Sandler,Amercian Tree Farm System, Allison Welde, Sustainable

Forestry Board

Bill Banzhaf, President Sustainable Forestry Board, RobertSimpson, Senior Vice President Forestry Program American

Forest Foundation

Piotr Paschalis (Poland), Jari Parviainen and Pauli

Wallenius (both Finland)

Alban Petiteaux, Seguin Moreau, Sponsors of the reception

and PEFC certified international wine barrel producers, MikeVirga (USA), Lance Spears, Seguin Moreau Napa Valley





Field Trip to Oregon certified ForestsTo get a first hand impression of forests, forestry and forest certification in the United States, the

participants of the General Assembly visited the Cowlitz Ridge Tree Farm certified under the AmericanTree Farm Systems ATFS. The Stinson Family's Cowlitz Ridge Tree Farm is over 350 hectares,

comprising predominately Douglas fir, and is situated along the Cowlitz River in the shadow of Mount St.

Helens. The entire Stinson family is involved in the stewardship of this property, which is managed for

multiple resource use including timber, wildlife, and other uses.

You can receive this Newsletter, furtherupdates and current news by subscribing tothe PEFC mailing list at www.pefc.org.

Further detailed information and news onPEFC member systems can be obtained

directly from their websites whose links areavailable from the PEFC website:

www.pefc.org.

pefc newsletter 34 general assembly november 2006

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