Friends of the Earth Rejects Forest Stewardship Council

PRESS/SOCIAL MEDIA RELEASE

Friends of the Earth Rejects Forest Stewardship Council

- Major victory for Ecological Internet's campaign to end ancient forest logging as key response to climate and biodiversity crises

September 23, 2008
By Earth's Newsdesk, a project of Ecological Internet http://www.ecoearth.info/newsdesk/
Dr. Glen Barry, +1 (920) 664-1965,
glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org

(Earth) -- Friends of the Earth (FoE) is the first major international NGO to confirm they no longer support Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification, which falsely suggests primary and old-growth forest logging is desirable and even sustainable. This is a major victory for those including Ecological Internet (EI) and FSC-Watch[1] who have courageously taken on large environmental interests using FSC to greenwash ancient forest destruction.

FoE pioneered timber certification during the 1980s and was one of FSC's founders, but FoE International in Amsterdam has confirmed that it is now "reviewing" its membership of the organization. FoE UK announced on their website[2] they are "deeply concerned by the number of FSC certifications that are now sparking controversy and threatening the credibility of the scheme. We cannot support a scheme that fails to guarantee high environmental and social standards. As a result we can no longer recommend the FSC standard."

"FoE is to be commended for their courage in admitting all forest certification schemes including FSC are failing forests, climate and peoples globally. FSC plantation and ancient forest logging standards have been shown to be a fraud -- business as usual forest destruction. We welcome reports that other European NGOs may follow FoE's lead, and demand that Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace and WWF stop their stonewalling and follow suit, or face escalating disruptive protests" warns Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet's President.

EI has long sought protection for all the Earth's remaining primary and old-growth forests. These efforts were stymied by large environmental bureaucracies falsely suggesting cutting carbon and species rich, centuries old trees is an environmental good. It became obvious the world's forests could only be protected, and global ecological sustainability achieved, if groups supporting FSC were confronted. Our protest campaign launched last year, assisted by recent overwhelming ecological science showing old-growth forests continue to store and remove carbon and are essential to fighting climate change[3].

More Information:
[1] For more information see http://www.fsc-watch.org/ [2] See their statement at:
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/faqs/sustainable_timber_fsc.html
[3] See earlier EI release at:
http://forests.org/blog/2008/09/feature-old-growth-carbon-
find.asp

###ENDS###

Dr. Glen Barry is a global spokesperson on behalf of global environmental sustainability policy. Ecological Internet provides the world's leading climate and environment portals at http://www.climateark.org/ and http://www.ecoearth.info/ Dr. Barry frequently conducts interviews on the latest climate, forest and water policy developments and can be reached at: glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org, +1 (920) 664- 1965.