Eco-Certification of NZ Plantation Forestry

By Murray Parrish
Environment Manager
Carter Holt Harvey

For delivery at: UNFF Intersessional Experts Meeting on the Role of Planted Forests in Sustainable Forest Management, 24-30 March 2003, New Zealand

This paper is part of a joint presentation with Grant Rosoman, Greenpeace NZ. It summarises the industry motivation for development of a set of good forest management standards. I have specifically examined the basis of and need for an ongoing relationship with other community stakeholders including the environmental movement.

NZ Forest Accord

The relationship between New Zealand’s plantation foresters and mainstream environmental movement is, by and large, cooperative. This has not always been the case. Prior to the NZ Forestry Accord the relationship was marked by hostility and protest, primarily related to the conversion of natural forests to other land uses including pine plantations.

The Accord committed Forest Industry signatories to avoid natural forest areas when establishing plantations. Environmental interests undertook to promote sustainably managed plantations established in accordance with the Accord as an environmentally desirable product.

A key aspect of the Accord is the simplicity/specificity of its clauses. The biological world is a complex and dynamic place. No single prescription of forestry is exactly applicable everywhere. To write such a prescription is in my assessment impossible.

The strength of the Accord is its simplicity. It is unashamedly a negotiated compromise between parties with fundamentally different perspectives. As a simple, measurable set of obligations it is easy to interpret by those wishing to comply, and easy to identify transgressors.

The need for clarity, simplicity and a negotiated compromise are/have been essential ingredients in the development of a set of New Zealand Plantation Standards.

It is important to an understanding of the New Zealand forest situation that New Zealanders are preconditioned to accepting wood from plantations. As an industry we are helped by the fact that our natural forests and the wood they produce look quite different from native forestry/timbers. Domestically, there is ready acceptance that radiata pine and its relatives are "environmentally okay". This has a down side in that there is little need for and probably limited premium for eco-certification of plantation timbers domestically.

NZ Forestry export dependent

New Zealand’s forest industry is expanding, the so-called wall of wood, (or for the "Pollyanna’s" among you the "wave of opportunity"). We need to access international markets on a cost competitive basis and we compete head on with other forestry exporting countries without subsidy and from a greater distance to market.

We would like to think that consumers were environmentally responsible and were willing to pay a premium for "sustainably produced" forestry or any other product. Experience to date suggests that consumers are primarily motivated by price.

Our initial reaction as an industry to the need for eco-certification was at best agnostic. FSC’s initial "Principles and Criteria" cast doubt on the value of plantations as a sustainable form of forestry.

Few customers appeared to value eco-certification in a financial sense.

The change in attitude to eco-certification by the plantation industry arose in part because of actions by New Zealand’s environmental community in highlighting the accepted place of plantation forestry in a New Zealand context. The majority of New Zealand’s ENGO community advocate near complete separation of natural protection forestry and plantation production forests.

International environmental organisations successfully influenced major branded retailers to specify eco-certified wood products at about this time which permeated through the value chain as a preference for eco-certified timber, provided other considerations such as log quality and price were being met.

National Standards negotiations

The negotiation of a set of National Standards was agreed to at a meeting of all stakeholders in May 2001. The objectives, at least from the point of view of the industry were the need to establish:

  1. A consistent, measurable set of standards/management practices. The motivation is in part to avoid the "environment" becoming a subject for industry competition in either the negative or positive sense. That is we are hoping to avoid the situation where one or more foresters damage the reputation of the industry as a whole by adopting poor environmental management in order to compete on price. Nor do we wish a continual ratcheting of environmental standards whereby an individual forester with a particular set of circumstances promotes his or her management practice as environmentally preferable in order to drive up the relative costs of forest management of his or her competitors.
  2. A set of National Standards as a pre-requisite to any credible labelling system. The value of eco-labelling as a means of consumer information/product differentiation would be quickly lost if a label represented a wide range of practices.
  3. Cost effective chain of custody
    New Zealand forestry is in the favourable position of primarily utilising one or two easily identifiable species. Widespread adoption of a single set of National Standards will allow forest products customers greater flexibility in sourcing logs and wood fibre without excessive chain of custody/verification costs. It is not in the industry’s interests, nor in the interests of the environment that moves toward eco-certification become unnecessarily costly and/or bureaucratic. Any returns that might be generated by forestry eco-certification should compensate the forester for the additional costs of better environmental management. Neither the industry nor the environment wins if the system simply ends up lining the pockets of auditors!
  4. It was made clear to the industry from the start that a formal National Standards process was required to get environmental groups to participate in Standard setting negotiations. An eco-label without ENGO support is unlikely to have credibility in the eyes of the consumers or the public.

Negotiations process

The negotiations have taken considerably longer than originally estimated and have required education and compromise on all sides. It is inevitable in my view that dialogue between the community sectors involved will continue after a set of Standards has developed in order to maintain a cooperative relationship and the consequential support for the Standards and their promotion that that fosters.

A big issue in negotiations to date has been the need to understand and work with the perceptions of the various parties as much as the "facts" of forestry and forest management. All sides to the negotiation have had to examine a multitude of issues from the perspective of other parties to the negotiation.

Where to from here?

It is clear that as forest owners we must produce what the customer and consumer values. Speaking as the Environmental Manager of a large forestry company; it would be nice to think that consumers will all willingly switch to an environmentally preferable product irrespective of price or other "value propositions". The reality, at least as we currently perceive it is that consumers interest in environmentally responsible purchasing is theoretical or restricted to specialty markets.

The reality for us is that we are producing a global commodity without subsidies and facing higher environmental costs than some other forest producers globally. In the absence of clear consumer or customer differentiation for environmentally preferable wood products it is likely that the lowest cost producer will predominate. National Standards and eco-labelling are the most obvious means by which consumers can understand and value good forestry practices.

Substitutes

As a final comment I would note that "environmental trade-off" is not restricted to competition between forestry producers. Wood is used to manufacture items such as doors, windows, weatherboards, all of which can be produced from other materials such as aluminium, steel and concrete. The future of sustainable forestry probably lies in an expansion of eco-labelling to encompass non-wood products. There is a real danger in aggressive competition between different foresters on environmental grounds that environmentally conscious buyers simply substitute wood for non-wood alternatives.

It is ironic that in this country the Government has chosen to shield the competitors to wood from the environmental costs of their means of production by nationalising the carbon absorption values of forestry, a decision which may be politically understandable but which has been described as environmentally reprehensible!

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