Contractors may hold key to concerns over European forestry
The European Environment Agency called for a renewed effort to improve the biological diversity in Europe’s forests through sustainable forest management in a report published on 18 October 2011.
This sheds new light on recent progress in Portugal where FSC, NEPCon and ENFE have joined forces to boost the ‘green’ forestry contractors market which will in turn increase FSC certification among small forest owners.
Europe’s forests are ‘worrying’
According to “Europe’s Forests at a glance: A breath of fresh air”, EU Member States report that 52% of species of community interest that prefer forest ecosystems are in unfavourable conservation status; just 15 % were in a favourable conservation status. Even more worrying, of the 73 forest habitat types listed in the EC Habitats Directive that were assessed, 63 % held 'unfavourable' conservation status, while just 21 % were 'favourable'.
As stewards of 55% of Europe’s forestland, smallholders hold a central role in putting environmental safeguards in place. Cost and procedural barriers have prevented mainstream uptake of FSC certification by smallholders, but the Certification of Forest Contractors (CeFCo) Project is making progress in certifying forestry contractors to reduce the costs and work load for smallholders.
Contractors on board
The success of Portugal’s first national CeFCo workshop in June 2011 coupled with increasing interest in the project, planning for a second workshop is now underway. More than 25 contractors, land owners and NGO representatives met in Lisbon for the first national workshop in Portugal, aimed at promoting the CeFCo project. It served to address important questions on costs, advantages of participation and requirements for certification under the pilot project.
At the event, Vera Santos, Director of FSC Portugal and representative of the CeFCo project in Portugal, announced the expansion of the project to include more field tests. Great interest has been expressed by forest contractors and the project partners invite small forest owners to register their interest as soon as possible.
FSC Portugal, NEPCon and National Association of Forestry, Agriculture and Environment (ANEFA; ENFE representative in Portugal) implementing CeFCo at the national level are currently in the final stages of preparing the reference standard to be used.
The audits will be carried out by NEPCon, involving a free pre-assessment that will result in a comprehensive report detailing the areas that need improvement to obtain certification. When the organisation is ready, a full assessment will verify all the certification standards are met.
Successful certification will provide forest owners an FSC forest management certificate, which may be supplemented with a PEFC certificate, while forest contractors will receive a SmartLogging certificate.
FSC, ENFE and NEPCon joined forces to develop an innovative concept to certify forestry contractors. The CeFCo Project is anticipated to reduce the costs and workload for small forest owners to achieve FSC certification, and ultimately boost the area of forests certified in Europe.
