The successful achievement of sustainable forest
management (SFM) is vital to Portugal, an uncontrolled case of deforestation in
Europe.
Forest certification (FC) is a market tool that claims to
be based on recognition of SFM.
But, how can FC business coexist with deforestation in
Europe?
In Portugal, some
family-owners and some of their organizations perform an extra effort to
implement SFM on their properties, particularly in forest management groups, investing
in is external recognition namely by CF. However, they represent less than 50%
of the total area certified in the country.
Recently,
certification systems operating in Portugal, as the Forest Stewardship Council
(FSC) and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC),
intend to move towards regional certification level. More than that: for this
purpose, they would like to use public support, integrated within the Common
Agricultural Policy (CAP), distorting the principles they should be based on.
That is, they want to overcome the outdated poor adherence to this tool - on
markets operating in imperfect competition - by the direct support financed by
taxpayers. Taxpayers, so, run into the risk of financing an alleged
double-charged “transparent” business:
as taxpayers and as consumers.
The coexistence of FC
systems with a deforestation situation under no control in Portugal is striking. The country has lost,
in a quarter-century, more than one quarter million hectares of its forest
area. In annual average, it is the equivalent of Lisbon area - 10 thousand
hectares per year, since 1990.
Breaches to the Basic
Law, the National Forest Strategy and the international commitments assumed by
Portugal, in the field of Sustainable Development and of Climate Change and
Global Warming, are statistically and successively notorious. The fact is
revealed by United Nations (FAO), Eurostat and European Environment Agency
reports. But none of them seems to be taken into consideration when one intends
to enable the business of FC.
The entities in
Portugal, representing FSC and PEFC, have a strong financial dependence of
entities that support markets operating through imperfect competition in the
country. Portugal has with strong focus on demand, where supply is
characterized by 98.4% of the forests under non-public management - more than
80% family-owned. However, that too seems irrelevant to the support of FC
business. Even though this market model has been leading to strong consequences
in terms of destruction of natural resources, the depreciation of the
territory, as the catastrophic spread of forest fires (where the country stands
out internationally) and the proliferation of uncontrolled pests and diseases.
The question that arises is whether, at international
level, either the FSC or PEFC are colluding with the situation of deforestation
in Portugal. Apparently they are! Then, their internal and international
credibility would be questionable too!
Isn´t the feasibility of FC, as a business,
overlapping the transparency that should be transmitted to the markets?
Is this not an instrument based on hypocrisy?
