Forest Stewardship Council Interview
What is the Forest Stewardship Council(FSC)?
In this episode we speak to Karen Van der Westhuizen, the communications director of an organization who have protected earths forests since 1993, with the FSC logo.
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October 27, 2020
FSC: Securing Our Forests
Forest Security
How many trees does it take to produce oxygen for one person for a full year? According to BBC Science Focus magazine 1 human consumes around 740kg of oxygen every year. It takes around 7-8 trees to produce this amount of oxygen.
The good news is that Earth has around 400 trees for every human. The bad news is that they are disappearing at a record high speed.
We spoke with Karen Van der Westhuizen, the communications director at the Forest Stewardship Council. Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has been guiding forest owners around the world for over 25 years on how to sustainably manage forests through its certification scheme.
If you ever see the FSC logo on a product you buy it means that FSC certifies this product is made with ecologically sustainable materials.
According to a study in the journal Nature, 46% of all trees have been cut down since humans started to cut down forests. Just between 1990 and 2016, planet Earth lost a forest area larger than the whole continent of South America, due to mainly economical interest and climate change wildfires.
Listen to the full interview to hear Karen explain “What is FSC?” and the importance of forests.
Want to find out more about the FSC? Subscribe to their newsletter , checkout their newsfeed and follow them on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
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The topic of today is the forest, why is that important to protect the forest and how and to understand that we have invited Karen Van der Westhuizen, who is the communications director at Forest Stewardship Council. So I want to say welcome to Karen..
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Karen, thank you so much. Derision, and I’m so honored to be here. You know, I love talking about the work that we do and about the importance of forests. It’s a real honor for me. Thank you for giving me this time.
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What I really would like you to do here for us to understand the picture of the forest wall, why would why is it important to talk about the forests? Where are we protecting and how big of a problem could you help us go into that direction?
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Yeah, of course. I think, you know, any time you open up a newspaper today, you’re going to read about climate change and you’re going to read also about the effects of climate change. So the strange weather that’s happening all over the world or very recently in the last few days, we’ve heard about how biodiversity is decreasing at alarming rates across the world. And this is all related to the loss of forest cover to forests are being lost at an incredible amount all over the world, particularly in the rainforest, in the rainforest or those that sort of former on the equator. And they are the richest places on earth for biodiversity and for other elements like storing carbon. That’s also equally important to combat climate change. So, you know, so it’s really important that people are aware of the of the value of forests and also how they can play a role in protecting forests.
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Right, so, um.
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The situation with force has never been as bad as it is that I could sum up what we’re trying to say here, that we need to address the force because it’s disappearing.
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That’s exactly the situation has never been as bad as it currently is.
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And how, um, how much forest. We’re talking about what is currently unprotected. How much is that threatening risk?
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I think most forests are at risk. You know, wherever there’s money to be made from a forest, I think it gets to be at risk. You do have programs like the one that of the Forest Stewardship Council that protects forests
in different ways. But, you know, our coverage across the globe is we protect around 20 percent of our forests at this stage. So there’s so much more that can be that can be exploited. You know, we mustn’t forget I mean, I say FSC protects around 20 percent. There are also other players who are protecting the forests and that includes indigenous communities. So people who have for centuries who have lived in the forest and they are the natural guardians of the forest. But at the same time, you know, we again, if you pick up a newspaper, you’re likely to find a story about an indigenous community that’s been pushed out of the forest so that somebody can make money from it. So I think as soon as there’s money to be made, there’s an opening for exploitation of forest.
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That helps understand a picture 20 percent that FSC, when you say FSC, you mean Forest Stewardship Council.
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Stewardship Council. That’s right, yes. And I brought along the logo because most people don’t know the name, but they’ll recognize the victory logo. So you’ll see this on many, many products that you buy in the store and that’s how you ever see is and it says 25 years in the making.
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So you’ve been around for 25 years, 25 years.
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That’s correct. Yes.
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Tell us more about what’s the role that FSC is playing to protect the forest?
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Ok, so our logo at FSC is Forests for All Forever, and that’s exactly what we do. So we make sure that forests meet the needs of society. To remember that one of the important roles of forests is that you’re getting wood for furniture. As you can see here, you know, the material that goes into your books, the paper that makes up the books, things that make up coffee cups, even textiles now are being made out of forest material. So we are making sure that forests are able to supply the needs of society while they can be there for many, many generations to come. And we do this by sitting us sitting in place of a bunch of rules. We call them standards, OK, that make sure that the forest is managed in such a way that there’s minimal environmental damage when we cut a log would be to cut a tree. There’s minimal damage to the environment. This means the biodiversity is protected. This means that things like the stability of the soil is maintained, that the cleanliness of the water in the forest is maintained and all the other factors that go into it. And we do this by mimicking as much as we possibly can, by mimicking the actions of nature. The other thing that we have to keep in mind is that you can’t say that forest management is sustainable. If the people who live and work in the forest don’t have a say in how that forest is managed.
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So the other very important part of FSC certification is to make sure that those people, the people who live and work in the forest, their needs are taken care of. And this includes many things like ensuring that, you know, if we are going into forests to take out to take out some of the the trees, that we make sure that things like religious rights of indigenous communities are preserved and respected, that the communities that live in the forest are still able to access the forest for their needs, like medicine. You know, they have berries and roots and things for medicines or dyes or whatever, whatever it is they need. And then we also make sure that people who work in the forests who actually are responsible for harvesting the timber, have a decent wage, have good, safe working environments, that they have all the training that they need. So it’s it’s a very holistic approach to making sure that forest is run sustainably. And when you see the logo that I showed you, that tree logo on your product, that’s when you know that the material that’s made up, that product has come from a forest that’s been managed according to those standards. So it’s we’ve been able to take the material out of the forest. But in the end, there’s no net loss of forest and the communities who live there are getting a benefit from it.
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Could you then almost say that if there’s a conflict of interest in a forest, some people want to chop it down because they maybe need to support their families? Some people just want an economical return of investment. And then there’s people who want to protect that, your gathering, these all these different players and kind of make a conversation.
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That’s exactly it. That’s exactly it. So, as I said, we have the standards in place so that people who are working, you know, the companies are going to take the timber out of the forest, and can do all the things that I’ve described. We also make sure there’s a market at the end of it so that the organizations who use the material for packaging of books or furniture or whatever know that they’re going to get some value from using FSC certified timber.
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So it’s a case of creating a demand as well for that timber and people who maybe just want to exploit the forest.
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And would they be open to implement those standards? Are they? Is this a tricky conversation negotiation or does that come easily that people want to implement this?
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Yeah, it can be tricky. I think, you know, on the whole people. People generally want to preserve the resources of the planet and some people do things out of ignorance rather than out of meaning to be destructive, also destructive. I beg your pardon. So, you know, so, yes, people can be very open to accepting FSC certification and the FSC label. They are, of course, those who just want to make money and who don’t care how they do it, unfortunately. Yes, we do try and engage them and we do try and bring about a change. But sometimes this is not always possible.
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And tell us to give us some examples of what that style will look like and what are we talking about here?
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Ok, well, I want to tell you a little bit, actually, we spoke about exploitation and I had a wonderful experience recently in Kenya. I met a woman called Maasai who lives in rural Kenya. Now she doesn’t live in a forest. There are no forests in the part of Kenya that she lives in. She lives in a sort of a savanna-like environment that started with shrub’s indigenous shrubs that grow naturally in the area. Now, five years ago, a group of loggers pitched up at her door and she had some trees. She had four trees growing on a property, old trees that had been there for many, many decades. And the lover said, we’ll give you fifty dollars if you let us cut down these trees. And, of course, you know, Masai being in rural Kenya, she lives on the edge of poverty she needs. And she needed money to send her children to school. And she agreed and she said, yes, please take them, give me the money. She was very happy to get the money. And it did pay for her children’s school fees for the rest of the year. The trouble is, once the money had gone, the trees were gone and there was no more way.
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You know, there was no other way for her to make money. And many of the people in the area that Maasai lives in faced a similar sort of situation. But there’s a local charity in that area as well. And the charity got together and wanted to find a way, a sustainable way for people to make money from the richness of the environment around them. So what they did was they looked at these indigenous shrubs and they came up with a way for people to harvest the old growth of the shrubs to make charcoal and sell it. So they came in and they took Mosse and they trained on what their old growth looked like. So how do you make sure that the shrubs are there, they stay intact, but you take off as much as you need to make a decent batch of charcoal that gives her a bean. It was a big drum, probably about a metre and a half tall, sort of as wide as you could spread your arms like that. And they taught her how to safely make charcoal in the stream that that included things like making a firebreak, how to protect your your lungs from the smoke.
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So they gave you all the equipment she needed to protect your eyes from the smoke again. They gave you the goggles to do that. And they taught you how to take these scraps from the shrubs and make charcoal from them. She then took that charcoal to the charity who had a facility to compress it into blocks that looked like a normal building brick and then the charity sold it at the local market. It also eventually got exported all around Kenya. Now, the charity only took enough money to pay for the expenses. The rest of the money went to her intimacy. And she’s been able to since, um, since I met her. She’s continuing to send her children to school to feed the family. They’ve even bought some chickens and a couple of goats so that the eggs and the milk are now feeding the family. And she’s been saving a little bit of money, every batch of charcoal. And she’s bought a second room into her little house that she had when I first got there. So this charcoal carries the FSC logo on it because it does everything that we say it’s going to do.
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It protects the environment. It gives benefit back to the community and there’s a market for it. And, you know, so this is really the sort of impact that we have on the ground. There are many other stories in Namibia, again, using charcoal and taking out Bush, non-indigenous Bush that had sort of overgrown areas. We’ve created an area where cheetahs are now thriving because they can run and hunt like they used to in Lithuania. A colleague of mine was there last week where in one of the FSC certified forests, they’re creating homes for a little dormouse that’s critically endangered.
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You know, and a few years ago, if you were walking through the forest, you were lucky to see one. And now when you go for a walk through the forest, you might see three or four of them. So it’s all of these actions on the ground that really give value to our work and really help us to see the impact. You know, if you are working to save forest, this is you really are impacting people’s lives and and the biodiversity in the forest.
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I see why that example is very it’s quite a way, from my understanding of what they fought FSC would do. So now we’re saying you’re actually implementing sustainable solutions in any way that it’s sustainable and people can provide for themselves. That could be a solution that fits like a strategy that the harder we’re talking about on how you’re.
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Well, we don’t actually implement the solutions, but by us providing all the guidelines for, you know, for the area to be managed sustainably and also with our label providing the market for the products to be sold, because let’s face it, if there’s no market, you know, it’s no good for us to be going in gathering her shrub’s every day and burning them. But the embassy label sort of gives that trust factor so that there is a market. It’s easier to create a market with this.
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And thereby the counselling part, so you’re counseling people to find the solutions themselves?
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That’s exactly it. It’s empowering people.
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Oh. Thank you.
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That helps understand really and then if they force, then because he would certify parts of the forest reserve to certify products, villagers said we certify parts of the forest.
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So some companies, especially these massive big forestry companies, you know, they do different things in the forest. So they would ask us just to certify one of the forests or parts of many of the forests. But we also certify what we call chain of custody. So, for example, A, if a timber comes from a forest, it has the FSC certified certificate with it. It then goes to the mill where it gets turned into pulp and that mill then has a certificate to put onto that bundle of pulp. It then goes to the paper manufacturer who turns it into paper. And that manufacturer also has what we call a chain of custody certificate to make sure that the FSC logo goes on to that and so on and so forth, until eventually you get a book in the supermarket. So, there’s two different kinds of certification in forest management, which is exactly what it says. It’s for the forest. And the second one is the chain of custody certification so that it can move from one area to the next.
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So you’re stepping directly into the market, and any time a customer or someone who wants to buy something see the logo of FSC, then you could be certain, OK, this is there’s a sustainable production behind us.
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Yes. Yes. That the production was according to the FSC standards. Yes, that’s correct.
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Cool. Now I guess you’ve been expanding for four to five years and that’s already created a big impact. And I guess there’s just. Unless I’m forced to to work with them, how would you identify the places where you want to go into?
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So we are actually in the process of doing that right now, we’re working with our members. We have over a thousand individual and organizational members all over the world representing, you know, environmental experts, people and charities that represent people. And then obviously the businesses, you’re all involved. And we’re working with them at the moment to identify exactly what our strategy is going to be for the next few years. Tropical timber, I think, is definitely a place where we need to be, you know, most of everything to do with forests actually is in the tropical areas. Those are the ones around the equator that I explained. So this is certainly an area that we need to work in and an area that we would like to expand in. And then the other one is another area is what we call smallholders. And these are the people who own the tiny little forests, sort of forests that have been in the family for many generations, people like Mosse, who could quite easily be exploited for money and who are looking for a way to make sure that the forest potentially makes a little bit of money, but also, you know, is there for generations to come.
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So, that’s the other area that we’d be looking at expanding into. I think, you know, both bring challenges. Obviously, if you’re dealing with communities, communities have different needs, different cultures, different countries, different weather conditions. And one size doesn’t always fit all, of course. So we need to really work very closely with communities to come up with things that they can implement our standards, but in a way that’s suitable to them. And also, if you look at many of the countries where the tropical
forests are, these high levels of corruption and and other high levels of poverty. So it’s very difficult to work in those areas as well. So, you know, so it’s there’s challenges along the way. None of this is easy. It all sounds easier to talk about it, but none of it is easy. But I can tell you that we are determined not to step away because it’s difficult. Our role is to protect the forests of the world and we’re going to do that regardless of how difficult it is.
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Hmm. Um, we’re starting to get closer to our stance here. Could you help us understand could you paint the world if FSC Forest Stewardship Council had not existed for the last 25 years, how would the world look differently? Well, it’s not a possible question for you to answer.
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I think it would be quite a presumptuous question for me to answer. And I don’t have anything to back me up on that. I can certainly answer a question about how if people, organizations like FSC didn’t exist, I wouldn’t want to make it only FSC specific. I think there’s so many other people out there who play a very important role as well. So would that be OK?
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Yeah, my question is quite a mind trick experiment, so I see what I would find difficult to answer on my own. Then how would you help us understand? What would you want people to do after listening to listen to what? Where would you recommend people?
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Well, people can do a very simple thing, and that is to look for a logo on products. You know, every time you buy a product with that logo on, you know that you are supporting a good cause. You’re supporting the forest and you’re supporting the people who live in the forest. People like Mosse who have just explained, who have just told you all about the bigger things that you can do, obviously. And there’s many, many organizations around the world, WWF,
the Rainforest Alliance, who have lots of information on their websites about how you can continue to protect forests, reduce our carbon footprint. And, you know, all the details are not going to go into each of them. But please, please do go and have a look at what you can do. But it’s simple. A very simple step you can make is just to make sure that you’re looking for that logo on your product. When you go out and do your shopping next time, you can show us the logo down there. Yes, of course. There we go. Can you see that OK? Yes, we call it the tree.
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I do recognize that logo. Yeah, it’s I guess it’s many people might be, and I think that’s it.
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When we say Forest Stewardship Council, sometimes people look at us blankly. But as soon as you show the logo, you can see the recognition. Yeah.
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Yeah. Then the last thing I want to do is live with this. Is there anything important that you would like for more people to understand about the forest or about, um, um, yeah. The course area that we’re talking about.
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I think, you know, I would love for people just to really appreciate the value of the forests. Forests have been something that have been around forever. So, you know, we kind of treat them a little bit like we treat the air that we breathe. You know, it’s something that’s there and it’s not going to, you know, won’t go away. The problem is that it is going away. So please be aware of that. And there are many, many things that you can do to protect the forest. I spoke about, you know, the logo. These are the things that you can do, join the fray for future demonstrations that are happening around the world. I believe many of them are still going on virtually despite covid, you know, reduce your carbon footprint, do all the things that you need to do. But first and foremost, I think for you to really do those with passion is just to appreciate that without forest, there is no planet. We would be in a terrible, terrible place. So that, I think, would be my Take-Home message for everybody. Please protect the forests and appreciate the value.
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