FSC meets TAP: A Citizen’s Report

It was just bad luck that TAP’s meeting with FSC Australia chief executive Natalie Reynolds happened on the coldest day of the year so far.

We were in the same room of the Rosevears Tavern where TAP member Bob McMahon had been presented with the Tasmanian Times Tasmanian of the Year Award in 2012 such a short time ago.

Sadly Bob is no longer with us.

Some members of Timber Workers for Forests had come up from Hobart and members of the Western Rivers Trust were present. FSC was also represented by ‘Jonno’ from Friends of the Earth who is on the FSC Australia grievance committee.

I don’t believe in all this ‘behind closed doors’ rubbish that Tasmania is obsessed with so here goes:

Yes TAP has a grievance with FSC Australia. We don’t think ‘astroturf’ organisation Timber Communities Australia should be in the ‘social’ chamber of FSC but in the ‘economic’ chamber.

First Natalie launched into a long speech on what FSC was and wasn’t.

It’s a private company that works with certification companies. She was often interrupted by questions that cut to the chase of what our concerns were.

Here is a rundown:

FSC seem to see the Forestry Tasmania-FSC certification attempt as an opportunity for both FSC and Tasmania, although stressed the TFA has nothing to do with FSC.

FT has to apply for full forest management certification and choose their own certifier. It’s hard to achieve full forest management certification but FT will have to use the ‘interim standard’ because the Australian Forest Standard hasn’t been written yet. It’s only a coincidence that FSC Australia received $1/2 million from the Australian government at the same time as the TFA was passed but the two are not connected. Writing the standard will cost about $2 million.

FSC will always remain objective and is above the government. Although they can certify the government, the government can never become an FSC member.

FSC will always remain objecvtive because the big decisions are made by somebody else like the certification companies. She admits the certification companies get it wrong sometimes.

FSC can’t control what any FSC member does in their ‘day job’. That means the 5 negotiators in the TFA who are FSC members and negotiated a law that stipulates FSC certification do not have a ‘conflict of interest’ according to FSC Australia. The fact it was all done in secret is also fine with FSC.

Admits there are pretty serious problems with Gunns ‘controlled wood’ verification due to the fact nobody is managing the forests other than the liquidator, but that isn’t the end of the game because it helps to ‘drive change’. Who knows where it could go? Controlled wood isn’t worth much anyway because you can only mix it with wood from other sources.

Seemed to agree that in Tassie ‘no FSC is better than failed FSC’. Jonno reminded us that Vic Forests failed FSC certification.

She is also looking for ‘FSC ambassadors’ but that went over pretty flat.

The TAP grievance concerning TCA being an astroturf organisation was discussed. TAP must resubmit the grievance with supporting evidence.

That means it has taken 6 months for the grievance to get to square one.

The fact TCA and NAFI operated from the same building and had the same executive director may not be enough to sway FSC. Welcome to the FSC system. If TAP meetings are open to anybody then why not publish the progress of our grievance?

Other thoughts:

The FSC representatives were meeting with a table full of mainly old men. Frank Strie was probably the youngest. Natalie seems able to deal with the media attention she gets in Tassie. Bloody cold day but the TAP President is in a short sleeved shirt. Real Tasmanians wear short sleeved shirts when its 8 degrees. Bob would have been in shorts.

* Pic of Natalie Reynolds removed for copyright reasons