Forests Certification
Much has been said and promised with regard to forest certification. Unfortunately little has been achieved, yet we now have a myriad of organizations competing to have their certification standards approved and verified. Much of this is motivated by the ability of a forest standard and certification process allowing companies to then sell Verified or Voluntary Certified Emissions (VER’s). You may have noted in the news several of the major banks trying to buy up huge tracts of forest for this very purpose.
The CAA Secretariat supports the ISO Standards with particular emphasis on the ISO 14000 series. This comes about due to the ISO standard providing a solid global standard for identifying, creating a baseline and boundary’s, monitoring, reporting and verifying assets such as a forest. Further more it allows Sovereign Governments to use these standards to create their own unique set of protocols and verifications due to the diversity and uniqueness of their individual forests. Again all needs to be independently verified and certified as part of any standard and CAA process.
The WWF (FCAG) assessment framework certification process follows the ISO guidelines and rules that comply with additional requirements described by the World Bank. The WWF guide can be regarded as conformity with the fairness requirements included in World Bank policy.
UNEP/GRID-Arendal, Annual flow of benefits from forests in selected countries, UNEP/GRID-Arendal Maps and Graphics Library, http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/annual-flow-of-benefits
-from-forests-in-selected-countries
(Accessed 21 September 2008)
