Swiss sawmill "Rey Holz AG" with FSC Chain of Custody. Member of the WWF Wood Group. Photo: Rey Holz
10 July, 2000
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Swiss sawmill "Rey Holz AG" with FSC Chain of Custody. Member of the WWF Wood Group. Photo: Rey Holz |
Gland, Switzerland - WWF, the
conservation organization, today announced that 12 per cent of Swiss timber will
be certified under the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) by the end of 2000,
following recent and forthcoming certification of forests in several parts of
the country.
In four Swiss cantons - Solothurn, Aargau, Zürich, and Graubünden - various
state-owned, community, and private forests have been newly certified. Within
the coming weeks, certification of additional forest holdings in the cantons of
Thurgau, Geneva, and Schaffhausen will get under way. By the end of this year,
70,000 hectares of forests producing 12 per cent of the country's timber will be
FSC-certified. WWF expects that over 40 per cent of the timber harvested in
Switzerland will carry the FSC label within the next four to five years.
"This rapid ongoing FSC-certification process is crucial to the
competitiveness of the Swiss forest industry," said Damian Oettli, Head of
WWF-Switzerland's forest campaign. "Forest owners can show their commitment to
environmentally and socially responsible forest management practices, while the
FSC label provides them with an economic asset."
This development is the result of the adoption of Swiss national standards on
forest certification in June 1999. These standards include - among other things
- a commitment to establish protected areas accounting for 10 per cent of the
certified forests. WWF-Switzerland, the Swiss Forest Owners Association, and
other major stakeholders have signed the agreement.
"The independent evaluation and monitoring, the support of environmental
NGOs, and the worldwide presence of FSC certification schemes were factors that
encouraged the canton of Solothurn's forest owners to have their forests
certified under the FSC," said Thomas Wallner, Solothurn's Minister of Economic
Affairs. "FSC certification will also strengthen our position on the timber
market as, in addition to keeping our present market share and customers, we
will gain new ones."
The demand for FSC products is rapidly increasing in Switzerland. The Swiss
"Druckerei ropress Genossenschaft" was the first print shop in the world to be
certified. And Migros, the country's largest retailer, offers a wide range of
FSC timber products to its customers. The company joined the WWF Woodgroup
(Switzerland) - a member of the Global Forest and Trade Network coordinated by
WWF - in 1997, and has actively supported the FSC since then.
For further information:
Damian Oettli, WWF-Switzerland, tel.: +41 79 407 35 01, e-mail: damian.oettli@wwf.ch
Urs Spinner, WWF-Switzerland, tel.: +41 79 407 32 70, e-mail: urs.spinner@wwf.ch
Olivier van Bogaert, WWF International, tel.: +41 22 364 95 54, e-mail: ovanbogaert@wwfint.org
NOTES TO EDITORS
1. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is an independent, non-profit,
non-governmental organization which enables the certification of well-managed
forests. More than 180 forests in 32 countries worldwide have been independently
certified under its auspices and over 10,000 FSC-labelled products are now
available around the globe. Visit the FSC website for more information: www.fscoax.org
2. For more information on WWF's work on forest certification visit its web
site: www.panda.org/forests4life
.
3. The Global Forest and Trade Network is now operating in North America,
Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, the Nordic countries
(Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland), the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and
the UK. At the current rate of growth there will be 800 to 1000 members by the
end of the year 2000, with Japan and Hong Kong poised to join the network soon.
Visit www.panda.org/forests4life/ffl_gfti.htm
for more information.
