Home » Certificate for the battle against national park

All environmental, scientific and forest communities in Primorye were deeply surprised with delivery of FSC certificate on the forest management to Roschinski KLPH by June 4, 2010.
In Primorye and Krasnoarmeiski municipality, where this company mainly have forest leases, people remember that Roschinski used to hardly overuse logging limits on the set of most valuable forest plots, reserved by the regional Legislature for designated national park in early 1990-s. And that plots were simultaneously determined by WWF as high conservation value intact forests. Company continued logging there even after official signing of governmental Decree on creation national park "Udege Legend", using some mistakes in official documents concerned to the borders of park and friendly relations with Primorye Forest Service. There are many proves on that violation in local WWF-Amur, in Prosecutor's office, park authority and our NGO BROC.

Lease contract on arguable plots, which was initially confirmed with special point on it's automatic cancellation since adoption of national park, was later secretly replaced by another fake one without that reminder. Nut neither this forgery, nor over-logging on reserved plots were anyhow considered by several courts, where park director tried to find the truth and justice. None in Primorye whenever succeed to punish logging elite of "Terneyles" holding - first FSC certified company on the whole Russian far East. SGS auditors could not as well.

We all also perfectly remember slanderous media campaign in Primorye, by some evidences paid by KLPH against national park couple years ago. The goal was to deeply discredit efforts of the park team to establish new civilized and legal resource use practice in the forest, where poachers and loggers used to ignore legislation during many years. KLPH owners succeeded to use for this campaign udege veteran, which was working formerly for the company and currently run pseudo-commune of udege, containing about 15 % of indigenous people and local hunters and officials as the rest. On his behalf, series of articles were published about "forcible withdrawal" of traditional hunting lease from udege in favor of park, about pursuit of udege poachers on their leased territory. Author of those articles did not take care of facts and legislation, and accepted the name of park "Udege Legend" as an official proof of udege ownership on the whole territory. He also ignored official support of creation national park, presented by the Chief of regional Association of Indigenous people, efforts of park director to hire udege representatives into park staff to develop special division on traditional resource use, souvenir production and to conduct appropriate wildlife inventory on the hunting zone. But, unfortunately, low salaries in state owned national park were much less than income from the sales of hunting licenses on the territory, which this commune got from regional administration for free. None would like to lose such easy business and give up traditional free hunting in favor of legally regulated, limited and controlled wildlife use under park managers, even if they are also udege.

Therefore, udege commune passed arbitration lawsuit against Governmental Decree on the park creation, smartly using mistakes in territorial square and borders and their different size in Decree and land use Act. Director tried to correct mistakes constantly with Moscow officials, but failed: responsible MNR Department seemed completely ignorant to the problem. As a result, park lost the court together with the most valuable one third part of territory, which finally remained without any control and protection for years, open for poaching and illegal logging, which is very regular here..

It's obvious that none presented any documents on payment of lawyer and travel services to Moscow to the SGS auditors in time of audit in Roschino, as well as on any financial support from the company to poor udege commune. Although general official support from KLPH to commune is well known here and is not a secret. Knowledgeable people in Moscow say that such kind of solution in Supreme Arbitration costs hundreds thousands dollars. For sure, nobody can proof that financial support from loggers provided before court case had just a target to run court case. As well as nobody can proof that there was no other and non official support to udege and media from KLPH and "Terneyles" for campaigning against park. Such suspicions remain live among regional environmentalists, who watched following firing of park director Kronikovsky without any justification and further destroying of the park structure.

So, the basic question appears - in favor of whom should FSC auditors interpret that suspicions ? FSC Standards and practice don't give clear response. By the essence of FSC, such doubts should be interpreted and used against FSC candidate, as any potential environmental risk is usually legally presumed. And company applying FSC certificate has to proof accordance of it's practice to Standard requirements, since their violations are initially presumed.

It is a time to remind, that "Terneyles" holding itself, both in time of it's initial certification in 2004 and second one in 2009, caused serious critics from stakeholders, always ignored by SGS and by ASI. In early 2000-s it was scandalous history of Samarga watershed lease, presented to "Terneyles" with 2 core violations - without any contest and without properly received accordance of the local udege commune. To tell the truth, company made a set of steps to extinguish some conflicts, paying penalty to fishing state administration and signing agreement on compensating support with local udege commune. They also signed Agreement with a group on environmental NGOs to identify high conservation value forests on the area, exclude them from logging plan and support legal protection. Although "Terneyles" up to now did not enter that identified areas, they still remain inside logging plans. Nonetheless, FSC adopted second certificate for this company despite some new protecting messages from stakeholders.

Authors of Standards and keepers of FSC ideology should understand, that deeply formal approach in the process of comparing management practice with FSC requirements gives to smart loggers opportunity to get certified without serious changes in the practice - just making some needed papers, and that's it. So, they can easy cheapen and make senseless all the process as a way to really responsible and sustainable management. Neither auditor, nor stakeholder who presents his vision, are prosecutors, criminal investigators or newspaper editors, who need documents to proof any discouraging information. If it would be so, no one company on the Far East had been certified.
Although, unfortunately, some auditors even ignore existing documental proves of anti-FSC practices of their client, and described example of "Terneyles" is a good illustration. Direct financial dependence of auditor from client - essential weakness of the whole system, making it very formal. It permits auditor to be satisfied with papers and verbal declarations, whilst management practices rare fit them. For sure, any imperfect system tries to safe it's imperfectness, which is convenient for many. But it does not impede auditors to work honestly and improve the system personally.

I guess, that is what the system is just waiting from them - there is some capacity for improvement inside the system. If to get back to Roschinski KLPH, auditors had to talk seriously with national park officials and two local udege communes as a core stakeholders, although had not to check their financial documents. For sure, with regards to broadly known scandal around KLPH and park, auditors had to listen to the other people, who know situation inside udege communes, where there was no paper works and reporting at all. Formally auditors don't care if indigenous commune includes mostly non-indigenous members, close to logging community and municipal administration. But here is a point 1.4 of Russian Standard: "Any contradiction between legislation and FSC principles should be considered from viewpoint of getting certification goals and with obligatory participation of stakeholders". Contradiction between regulations, which helped KLPH to battle against national park, and environmental goals of certification, which the park was created for, are obvious. And it is equally obvious that auditors involved far not all the stakeholders to the scrutiny of these contradiction, or, at least, did not take into account position of that ones, who really suffered from KLPH. This should worry those people in the system, who adopt Standards and accredit auditing bodies. After all, goal of certification is a way to responsible forest management, but not to financial sustainability of certifiers. Our goal, honestly - to help them die, when all the forestry become responsible in the process of growing of environmental and social culture.

Anatoly Lebedev ( Vladivostok )