Sensational newspaper headlines like these, and television pictures of ravaged tropical forests, all serve to worry us; if the present rate of clearance continues, there will be hardly any tropical forests left for our grandchildren to see. More important is the fact that forest destruction contributes to global warming.

But what can we do about it? There wasn’t much we could do in the past – but there is now.

During 1990, growing public concern about forest degradation motivated a group of timber users and representatives of environmental and human rights organisations to meet in California to discuss how they could improve forest conservation. The consensus was that there was a need for a way to identify forests which were well managed and consequently acceptable sources of forest products. Three years later the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) was born, and by 1994 a set of Principles and Criteria had been approved by the Founding Members.

The buzz word is ‘sustainability’, which, for generations of foresters until the 1980s meant managing forests to ensure that they provided a regular yield of wood in perpetuity. The FSC’s concept of sustainability is much wider. It includes factors such as the health and safety of forest workers, the rights of indigenous people, the efficient use of non-timber forest products, conservation of biological diversity, protection of water resources and soils and enhancement of landscape.

The FSC’s International Principles and Criteria are not always appropriate for every country but they can be adapted for regional conditions. In the United Kingdom, after a long process of negotiation involving representatives from social, environmental and economic sectors, the United Kingdom Woodland Assurance Scheme (UKWAS) was drawn up. This is accredited by the FSC and is the standard used to define best UK forestry practice.

Printer friendly version

Email this article to a friend