PEFC Newsletter 28 General Assembly November 2005

8/9/2019 PEFC Newsletter 28 General Assembly November 2005

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The PEFCC Newsletter is produced by the PEFC Council (Registered as an asbl in Luxembourg No. 1999-61-02192)

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Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes No 28 - November 2005

PEFC/01-00-01

Special 9th PEFC CouncilGeneral Assembly Issue

Contents

Editorial

Welcome Reception

Chairman’s report – Extracts

Keynote speech by Dr Wulf Killmann, FAO

Endorsement of the Brazilian CERFLORcertification system

Belarus: newest PEFC Council member

MECSEA becomes Extraordinary Memberof the PEFC Council

Changes to PEFC Council documentation

PEFC honours outgoing PEFC ViceChairman and Treasurer

Election of new Board Directors

New PEFC flyers / PEFC Information CD

Field trip to Belgian PEFC certified forests

Other News:PEFC Promotion Seminar in the

Netherlands

Special General Assembly Issue

This year has been the busiest for PEFC yet with 13assessments and re-assessments of schemes endorsed 5years ago. The fruits of this work have resulted in more

than 7% or the world’s forests being certified which

produce about 20% of the world’s industrial roundwood.

However PEFC does not operate in a vacuum and external

events impact on its work. Although until recently reluctant

to get involved in what they perceived as a voluntary

market tool, several governments are currently developing

public procurement policies with forest certification being

the highest level of proof of sustainable forest

management (SFM). PEFC applauds the efforts ofgovernments to give preference to certified timber.

However governments must be mindful that certified timberis traded internationally and as major buyers, their policies

will affect this trade.

Governments, especially in common markets like Europe,must make every effort to ensure a harmonised approach

to their procurement policies so as to avoid situations

where the same certified timber is recognised as legal andsustainable in one country but not in another. Public

procurement policies must not become artificial barriers tothe trade of certified timber and failure by governments to

achieve a harmonised approach may put at risk the efforts

of society in its development of certification as a voluntary

tool to promote SFM.

PEFC looks forward to working with governments and all

other stakeholders to promote preference being given to

certified wood based products from sustainably managedforests and so promote wood as the best renewable, and

environmentally friendly material available to society.

The next General Assemblywill be held in Portland,

Oregon in the USA in 2006.

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 28 – November 2005

Welcome Reception

On Thursday 27th

October,Mr Henri Plauche-Gillon,

Chairman of the PEFCCouncil welcomed guests

and PEFC member

delegates to a Welcome

Reception at the Bedford

Hotel in Brussels.

Mr Plauche-Gillon especially welcomed Mr

Vincent Peremans from the Belgian Ministry of

Agriculture, Rural Development, Environment

and Tourism, and Dr Wulf Killmann, Director of

the Forest Products and Economics Division ofthe Food and Agriculture Organization of the

United Nations FAO.

Mr Vincent Peremans, congratulating PEFC onits achievements of certifying sustainable forest

management both in Belgium and globally, and

Mr Jean-Charles de Viron, Chairman of PEFCBelgium hosting this year’s PEFC Council

General Assembly, welcomed the participants to

Belgium.

Mr Antonin Prébois (Secretary General of the internationalENGO Platform) Mr Henri de Venevelles (PEFC France)

and Mr Sebastien Genest (President France NatureEnvironnement and PEFC Council Board Member)

Dr Ben N Donkor

(Ghana ForestryCommission),observer at thePEFC Council

General Assembly

Welcomingaddresses by MrJean-Charles de

Viron (PEFCBelgium) and MrVincent Peremans(Belgian Ministry of

Agriculture, RuralDevelopment,

Environment and

Tourism)

Mr William Luddy (PEFC Board Member and Trade Union

Rep, USA) and Mr Mark Edwards (Australia)

MrHaruyoshiTakeuchi(PEFC AsiaPromotions )and ChewLye Teng(MTCC,Malaysia)

Dr WulfKillmann(FAO), Ms

Ute Seelingand MarianFreiherr vonGravenreuth

(Germany)





PEFC General Assembly 2005

Extracts from the Chairman’s Reporton activities in 2004 / 2005

The PEFC Council has

continued to expand withcurrently thirty member

countries.

PEFC membershipPAFC Gabon and the

Institute for Forest Certifi-

cation representing Slovenia

joined in January. The

Belarusian Association of

Forest Certification BAFCShas applied for PEFC

membership. MECSEA, the

Association of Manufac-turers of Educational and

Commercial Stationery in

Europe has applied forExtraordinary Membership.

Systems endorsed

The revised Finnish ForestCertification System was

endorsed. Portugal, Canada,

Luxembourg, the Slovak

Republic and Brazil gained

endorsement for their

national forest certification

systems. The total amount of

hectares certified under

PEFC approved systemshas more than doubled in

the past year and the

endorsed 21 systems nowaccount for more than 126

million hectares worldwide.

Systems submittedThe revised Austrian

German, Swedish and

Norwegian certificationsystems have been

submitted to the PEFC

Council for a second 5-year

endorsement period. The Estonian, Lithuanian,Polish and US American SFI forest certification

systems have been submitted for first timeendorsement and are currently being assessed

by independent consultants.

PEFC further develops its requirements

The PEFC member countries approved several

changes to the PEFC Council Technical

Document relating to public consultation during

certification audits, making publicly available the

summary of individual audit results, clarification

of re-endorsement procedures as well as some

editorial changes. An new certifying and labellingoption for recycled material in the PEFC Chain of

Custody system was approved. For the

assessement of national standards seekingPEFC endorsement a new Minimum

Requirements Checklist was developed, which is

publicly available at the PEFC Council website.

PEFC Seminars

The regular PEFC National Secretaries Training

Seminar was held in Portugal in May 2005.

In addition the following other seminars were also

held: A PEFC Chain of Custody TrainingSeminar, two PEFC promotion and information

seminars in Denmark and the Netherlands for

timber trading and processing companies, a

Recycled Wood Seminar, a GMO Seminar and aCommunications session for members prior to

the General Assembly.

Communications activitiesThe ENGO Platform for environmental

organisations was established. Promotions

campaigns have been established in the UK andare ongoing in Asia. A PEFC Liason office for

Eastern European countries was created. Five

Newletters plus a special General Assembly

issue have been produced; two new brochures

were developed and printed; a PEFC Information

CD produced and a study for a Certified Product

Database was made.

Henri Plauche-Gillon

Chairman PEFC Council

PEFC CouncilChairman

Henri Plauche-Gillon

“The PEFC

Council has continued to

address the

various issues relating to

forest

certification

around the

world, and as a result the amount of

forest

hectarage under PEFC

approved

Systems has risen from 52

million hectares

last year to

more than 126 million this

year.”





Brazilian certification systemCERFLOR gains PEFC

endorsementPEFC Council International

announced the official

endorsement of the Brazilianforest certification system

CERFLOR at its General Assembly. On that

occasion, Mr Henri Plauche-Gillon, Chairman of

PEFC Council, presented the official

endorsement certificate to Dr Alfredo Lobo,

Quality Director of INMETRO, the National

Institute of Metrology, Standardization and

Industrial Quality, which is responsible formanaging the CERFLOR system.

With the endorsement of

the national forest

certification system forboth plantation and

natural forests in Brazil,

the first PEFC certifiedtropical timber will now be

available. Together with

the 882,049 hectares ofcertified Brazilian forests,

the total area of PEFC

endorsed certified forests

has now reached more than 127 million hectares

worldwide. The endorsement followed a rigorous

and lengthy assessment process of severalmonths that included a detailed review of the

system by independent consultants and a public

consultation period.

Dr AlfredoLobo ofCERFLORafter the

successfulendorsementof the

Brazilianforest

certificationsystem

PEFC Council welcomesBelarus as new member

The General Assemblyunanimously approved the

application of the Belarusian

Association of Forest

Certification (BAFCS) for PEFC Councilmembership. Together with Belarus, PEFC

Council now has 31 member countries on six

continents.

Mrs Olga Chabrovskaya, Mr Mikalai Yushkevich and Mr

Aleh Atroshchanka from the Belarusian Association ofForest Certification

MECSEA becomesExtraordinary Member of PEFC

The association formanufacturers of

educational and commercial stationery MECSEA

is now an Extraordinary Member of the PEFCCouncil. The application for membership was

unanimously approved by the PEFC Council

General Assembly.

MECSEA is a confederation with direct company

membership of manufacturers of stationery andoffice products and represents 80-85% of thetotal production and demand of stationery and

office products in the EU. Its members combined

turnover is about 2.350 million Euro and they

employ nearly 20,500 employees.

MECSEA is the third largest industry sector in the

Paper and Paperboard Converting sector after

Packaging made from Paper and Board and

Hygienic Paper Products.





Key note speech of WulfKillmann from FAO

Dr Wulf Killmann, Director of the Forest Productsand Economics Division of the Food andAgriculture Organization of the United Nations

FAO, spoke at the PEFC General Assembly on

FAO’s involvement in international forestry

processes and forest certification. He stressed

the important role that forest certification plays to

assure and promote sustainable forestmanagement of the world’s forests. He also

highlighted the increasing role governments play

in more use of certified products.

Dr WulfKillmann(FAO)

speaking onthe role offorestcertificationandsustainableforestmanagement

Changes to PEFC Councildocumentation

Several changes of the PEFC Council Technical

Documentation were approved by the PEFC

members, among them clarifications on the

PEFC chain of custody certification, the PEFCoption for recycled raw material, the use of the

PEFC Logo by enterprises with chain of custodycertificates in more than one country and other

editorial changes. The new documents are

available at www.pefc.org >Documentation

>PEFC Technical Documentation.

PEFC honours outgoing PEFCVice Chairman and Treasurer

The outgoing PEFC Council Vice Chairman and

the PEFC Council Treasurer, Dr Christian

Brawenz and Mr Michel Terlinden, werehonoured by the Chairman, Mr Henri Plauche-

Gillon, in a short ceremony during the General

Assembly. Thanking them for their long-timeservice and achievements for the PEFC Council,

he presented them with certificates recognizing

their active support and service for PEFC sinceits start in 1999.

PEFC Council

Chairman, Mr HenriPlauche-Gillonthanking DrChristian Brawenzfor his outstanding

service andachievements as

Vice Chairman ofthe PEFC Council

Mr HenriPlauche-Gillonand Mr BenGunnebergthanking MrMichelTerlinden for

his long timeservice asTreasurer forthe PEFC

Council





New Vice Chairman andDirectors for the Board

Two PEFC Council board members were re-elected and one member elected to the Board of

Directors. The background information below

was provided by the Directors.

Bob Simpson

Vice Chairman

Bob Simpson, the new PEFC Council Vice

Chairman, is currently serving as Senior Vice

President, Forestry Program, American Forest

Foundation. He oversees the largest family forest

certification scheme in the US with nearly 80,000

certified properties, totalling 35 million acres. He

has been actively involved with PEFC since 1999

and currently serves on the PEFC Council Board

of Directors.

Kathy Bradley

Member

Kathy Bradley joined The Paper Federation of

Great Britain in 1988 and spent several years asHead of Communications, adding responsibility

for forestry issues to her role in 1996.

In 1998, she was promoted to Director ofExternal Affairs, a position she continued to hold

when the Confederation of Paper Industries (CPI)

was launched in 2000. She is the CPI’s main

spokesperson to the media, Parliamentarians,

environmental and other organisations and is

responsible for links with these groups.

Her department first alerted the industry to theissue of forest certification in 1994 and Kathy has

been closely involved with the subject ever since.

She was the UK’s senior expert on TC207

Working Group 2 on Forestry which wasconvened to prepare a report to facilitate the use

of ISO 14001 standard for Environmental

Management Systems by forestry organisations.Kathy Bradley is on the Confederation of

European Paper Industries’ (CEPI) Forestry

Committee.

Michael Clark

Member

Michael Clark has now served two years on the

PEFC Council Board of Directors and is

Chairman of the PEFC Council strategicpromotions initiative for the UK, as well as a

member of the PEFC Council’s MarketAcceptance Committee.

He has been actively involved with forest

certification issues since 1994, representing theinterests of M-real’s wallpaper base mills in

negotiations with the WWF 1995+ group and with

the main ENGOs. He has attended numerousconferences on forest certification both in the UK

and abroad and has been actively involved in thedebate with paper buyers and ENGOs.

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 council member

of the UK Confederation of Paper Industries, has

been involved representing the interest of the

paper sector on forestry issues with the UK

Government and other industry bodies.





New PEFC information flyers

The PEFC Council has

developed two new information

flyers. The brochure “PEFC – the responsible choice for

Retailers, Traders, Printers,

Manufacturers, Wholesalers,

Stockists” informs paper and

timber trading and processing

companies of the advantages

and opportunities of PEFC

certification for their businesses.

The flyer “It’s good to buy certified wood – Choose PEFC

labelled products and protect

the environment” informs

consumers and the general

public about PEFC certification,

explaining why one should

choose certified products and

how the PEFC label can help in

purchasing decisions.

The two new flyers can be downloaded from the

PEFC Council website at www.pefc.org.

PEFC Council information CD

A new information CD is now

available from the PEFC

Council containing details

and promotional material on

PEFC certification. The CD

contains the current PEFCbrochures, rules for the

PEFC logo usage, the full PEFC Council

Technical Documentation and Power Pointpresentations about PEFC Council and the

international PEFC Chain of Custody.

The CD will shortly be available for downloadinga the PEFC Council web page.

Strong interest for PEFC in theNetherlands

An information seminar for paper and timber

trading and processing companies, organized bythe PEFC Council in response to the growing

interest for PEFC certification in this country.

The seminar “How PEFC can help yourbusiness” took place in Utrecht in the

Netherlands in October 2005 and was well

received by the over 50 representatives of Dutchtimber and paper companies.

PEFC experts and representatives from timbercompanies , that are already PEFC certified,presented the advantages of PEFC Chain of

Custody certification and their positive

experiences with the PEFC system.

Panel discussion with speakers (from left to right: RobertTaylor (UPM-Kymmene Wood) and Hannu Valtanen (Vice

Chairman), Jaroslav Tymrak (Technical Expert), Ben

Gunneberg (Secretary General) of the PEFC Council

Participants of the timber and paper industry at the PEFCCouncil seminar on Chain of Custody in Utrecht





Field Trip t PEFC certified Belgian ForestsTo get a first hand impression of PEFC certified forests in Europe, the participants of the GeneralAssembly undertook a field trip to the Belgian forest of Marche-les-Dames, south east of Brussels.

As an example for modern timber architecture and to hear about new developments in the reproduction of

tree species, the participants visited the Forest Reproduction Materials Centre in March-en-Famenne.

You can receive this Newsletter, furtherupdates and current news by subscribing to

the PEFC mailing list at www.pefc.org.

Further detailed information and news on PEFCmember systems can be obtained directly from their

websites whose links are available from the PEFCwebsite: www.pefc.org.

PEFC Newsletter 28 General Assembly November 2005

Documents

Transcript of PEFC Newsletter 28 General Assembly November 2005