Transcripts For DW DocFilm 20240714

They can buy its products with confidence if thank. Those of it has earned a seal of approval from the Forest Stewardship Council or if a see a Nonprofit Organization that promotes responsible management of the worlds forests. But can logging in rain forests ever really be environmentally sustainable. Trunk mole is a German Government expert on the sourcing and purchasing of tropical timber. Them as if the most excited i was when german consumers buy tropical Wood Products that are certified by the f a c they are making a contribution to the preservation of the rainforests and by supporting sound timber management policies mr thats a friend of us as i was. But can buying products that have the f. S. E. Seal really stop the excessive exploitation of primeval forest. The moser Bridge Company harvests wood in the forests of peru to make flooring products. This is the order wrong go forest a pristine paradise in the amazon basin. We want to find out where bows of itch and f. O. C. Certified Company Harvest timber for its wood floors are here and this local manager says the f. S. E. Has imposed strict guidelines on harvesting. In an area the size of a football field only one tree may be removed in 20 years. This process is called selective cutting. This is the tree theyre going to cut down today. There are 3 out of the tree over there back there the one in the middle the white one. Which is with on the phone 4 seem cool its 20 meters high. In the border looming its about 60 years old and has been producing seeds for 50 years and for the trunk is particularly straightforward so we get a lot of what you offer. Selective cutting is considered a sustainable procedure the f. S. E. Has given it seal of approval to the bows of each company for several years now. Thanks. Those of each believes its taking a responsible approach and the German Government claims that the f. A c. Is helping to preserve the rain forest fire. But is that really true to find out more we travel to vancouver canada for an f. A c. Conference. The organizations motto is forests for all forever. Will be a 1st sea has invited 1st nations peoples who live in the rain forests of southwestern British Columbia to perform as conserving forests is also about the estimated 100000000 people worldwide who call these areas home. Workers from all sorts of conflicts Kim Carstensen is director general of the f. S. E. And im so thrilled to be here with your. Its a conferences like this one that the future of the worlds forests is largely determined the f. S. E. Has members in 85 countries. Those who live in the forests members of the w w f and greenpeace and industry representatives all share responsibility for preserving our forests but while some want to protect nature others here want to cut down trees and f. S. E. Promotional video there is the tree. And the forest where the tree grows. And the warning who came for land. There is the man who listens to the bridge to make sure it didnt waste his house but. We ask him carstensen what his organization stands for. F. S. E. Is a responsible Forest Management that means that this is a Forest Management that ensures that the forces that now but there would also be the next year and the year after and for the next generation so if a sea is very much about maintaining this carbon maintaining forest quality and to make sure that the forest is that also for the next generations. To ensure this Forest Management policies are regularly reviewed f. S. E. Conferences 3 groups are allowed to vote. Forest dwellers environmentalists and the Timber Industry green line as usual in politics much of the policy work is done out in the lobby. Indigenous forest inhabitants fight to preserve their habitat environmentalists aim to save primeval forest and industry wants to cut down as many trees as it can while keeping the f. S. E. Seal of approval. Image matters to Multinational Companies and f s c approval helps them look good. When it comes to forest certification. Fs see is the most rigorous and accepted system on the market right now. So. In theory all 3 groups have equal voting rights. But Greenpeace International a Founding Member of the f. S. E. Claims that environmentalists are being pushed around by the Timber Industry. And as well see later during this film shoot greenpeace took drastic action. As a conference in vancouver the f. S. E. Claimed that under its leadership the worlds forests are in good hands what is the German Government say about that. You can consumers alone should not have to bear all the responsibility for preserving the forests its good for us we have to make sure that the companies that make wood and wood base products dont source wood from primeval forest in a non Sustainable Way that could destroy these vote would have been to go to school and foster trust and. Weve come to london to meet one of the sharpest critics of the f. S. E. Simon council was a cofounder of the organization but soon quit over policy disputes he believes that the f. S. E. Gives the Timber Companies too much power the Timber Industry itself has brought in as one of the Key Stakeholders of this body and part of the Decision Making process which we felt was strongly felt was flawed because the whole system was to be there to inspect and since regulate the tender industry so it shouldnt really have been involved. Council says the Timber Industry influence prevents the f. S. E. From making truly independent analyses. We want to find out whether thats true. We return to timber land license or concessions to the bows of each company in peru. How do they make sure that f. S. E. Guidelines are followed. If this is all you would offer proof of origin. We use these markings to keep track of. This one from block 4. Line 33. Number 20. Is markings are on every tree that ends up in the sawmill. Wood from f. S. E. Approved selective cutting is marked in red the f. S. E. Calls this controlled wood. Lumber from other suppliers that dont have the f. A c. Seal is marked in blue. In theory the red and blue stacks should stay separated as they are here but sometimes they get mixed together by mistake. Control is one of the big controversies inside if for some its always been a big controversy the good news i think is that we have to strengthen the control board standard and i think everybody agrees now that there is a level of control. But what exactly does level of control mean. We travel to the peruvian capital lima to meet an expert on the countrys Timber Industry. Works for the Environmental Investigation Agency or an Advocacy Group he shes just finished a report that indicates that many Timber Companies falsified documents on the origins of trees as shown by government investigations. Well there in this report and also these are there for everybody is before the show the largest number so. Thats also because theyre the largest in 4 years right so thats thats not a surprise but the growth here is that the consistently keep showing large numbers of you know papers. And then from there now 419 papers of the uses that where some both here at least 62 are you know the momentum by official i mean by the government when it by people from 8 kids i think im proud of that and this is not only that when we do. Because we think we want to think that we do something and so i actually feel very frustrated by what you know being able to believe very to the ruffords not in my country. The wood from the peruvian forests is transported to the river port of. The tree trunks are tied together there are hundreds probably thousands of logs here waiting to be shipped to lima for processing. A local boat captain has some disturbing news. I think. All these logs have been cut down illegally. Everyone around here knows that. The culture is known as the hub of the illegal timber trade in peru its from here that you legally sourced logs get shipped to Timber Companies. And the e. I. A. Says many will go to pose of it. Local insiders tell us where in the forest illegal logging is currently taking place. We plan to fly over those areas to capture aerial footage. We head toward the 1st location. After about an hour we see a recently logged area its been clear cut. A blue tint stands in the corner of the bald patch in the middle of the jungle. A little while later we spot something that looks like a transport. Tree trunks line the waters edge they were probably brought here from the forest. It doesnt seem as if the f. E. C. Has managed to stop illegal logging here in peru. Regarding both of it which we are aware of the. Reports we are aware of on phones for both the us well for 2 shots you know into some of these cases to our knowledge none of that material were sufficient surety for arthritis she gave birth to our knowledge there may be a some issues with it but its not officially certified therefore were still interested in the company because if the company is involved and again that she had one way or the other then thats of course an issue for. Beck and we know weve come to blows a bitch is love processing complex this is where the wood is prepared for export. Company c. E. O. Drug shows us prime lumber thats 100 percent f. A c. Certified. Although he also says logs do come in from none f. S. E. Suppliers. So that means you never had problems with illegal blocks weve never heard of problems need we see problems getting worse we just try to be out here and the board each game you know what i think you know go to introversion just us. He says. Whatever it costs you house to be security fire. Comes in Software Security you have to be able to prove it you can separate no one wants to see. That carry any word on you. So the f. S. E. Checks on the origin of the word but seems to ignore the fact that both of which has traded in timber that may have forged origin documents. So how credible is the f s c seal of approval we asked Simon Council in london so one would think if youre buying a product with an f. S. B. Label that would be a quite simple message to the the wood inside this product is all from an acceptable source that has been actually inspected by the audit is and guaranteed to be from an acceptable source f. S. E. 100 percent in which the label product contains only f s e certified timber is actually just a very small part of the picture and the others are from what i call euphemistically controlled wood and controlled wood is that which hasnt actually been controlled so instead of order it is on behalf of f. S. A. Going into the forest to inspect the logging operations its basically done from a desk somewhere else in born or in london ok so we have some examples of f. S. E. Certified products here lets have a look at these labels. This paper there 1st see paper from responsible sources but importantly you see this word mix on here this particular product itself may have no f s e certified material in it so in that sense this label is misleading to the consumer in living is believe that it is from responsible sources it may not be at all. Same here this product f. S. E. Mix toilet paper. Interesting here a box of. Is. He makes a good in some of the all some of these f. S. E. Certified from acceptable sources and some of them not impossible to know from the office the label yeah so what does the f. A. C. S. Director general have to say about the Organization Certification system. Theres no other system that works better than the system of certification theres no other system that is able to get together state kodos environmental organizations social group create your ns and the companies who are managing the forest to agree what do we mean by responsible Forest Management what are the standards that we want to set for how we define this no other system does that we in addition i have Quality Control which we have ordered set happen of the companies such as from. And if a sea Certification Team is meeting at this hotel in bonn part of their work today will involve checking to see whether Timber Companies active in the worlds great forests are complying with the organisations guidelines. We want to find out how the certification process works and file requests to accompany 10 different verifications but the f. S. E. Turns down our requests so we continue with our research. In the congo basin forest european Timber Companies have permits that allows them to cut down trees in given areas with f. A c. Certification. In the capital brazzaville were meeting a man whos been approving those permits for years. Weve agreed to protect his identity. And were not going to specifically name the companies that hes going to talk about. I want to withdraw the certificate from a Certain Company but when i met with the boss of that company he got so angry i left the hotel immediately. That night i feared for my life when i told my boss about the meeting he also got angry and said i was no longer to inspect their forests concession the Timber Companies pay money to keep their certification we checkers are independent in theory but not really. Because in practice we go to a site do a check and afterward nothing changes the companies go back to cutting down many more trees than theyre allowed to do. In such a situation you see what its like to see its really just. I think weve seen a situation where its absolutely possible to take action related to the certified operations in the congo basin one example would be that we disassociated from interim across 4 years ago and theyre now back in again because they improve their performance and all of that and this is sort of in the past but we could disassociate and it didnt create problems of that nature i dont. Weve come to the northern jungles of the republic of congo to meet some of the local residents. They belong to a group of seminomadic hunter gatherers called the bug. In this area or sell in some of her friends grow manioc in other crops from which they are in a living. The congo based company a subsidiary of the Swiss Company into hole co has purchased a permit to cut down trees here. The bulk of people say it is making their lives difficult because Companies Security guards have imposed strict controls on the amount of crops they can grow within each of those concessions. The evil forest concession covers an area of about 11000 square kilometers massive logs get transported out by trucks the company says it takes a selective approach to cutting down the trees. The post says this selective cutting complies with f. A c. Guidelines. And the f a c. Says the logging roads dont harm the local environment. Matthew hansen is a geographer at the university of maryland in the us he uses nasa satellite maps to keep track of how logging affects various regions around the world. Well assuming into. The republic of congo and all of a sudden you do see the logging road so youve seen these before. And so we can zoom in to a sort of f. S. E. Certified concession as evil concession the logging roads are beautifully maintained. Gorgeous you can see the the extractions of the trees themselves off the side of the logging road so this is very. Very clear that were getting actually a logging signal in parts of these concessions that everywhere the different colors represent the different years of the cut so this was early in the 2000 this was a couple years ago this was little 2016 it is amazing because youre bringing this human footprint and when were there we see the forest elephants we see the chimpanzees and the gorillas its like youve opened up this. Primeval forest and all of a sudden you can drive you know a 100 kilometers an hour straight down here to where nobody took you a few weeks to walk i think theres a cascade of effects here that are changing what was a natural forest eco system with with low population levels of subsistence farmers and fisher people. And so now you have something pretty irreversible. Developed to people tell us theyre not even allowed to hunt anymore because the company has to protect the animals so it wont lose its efficacy label. Denies these claims. The bug i used to kill monkeys in gazelles for food but now they say they often dont have enough to eat. Today there again preparing a meal from crushed because of the leaves. What it would you know why did this woman is upset about the dockers situation she says. People cant hunt and there are no jobs. There arent any schools for the children and their prospects for the future are blue. She says the Timber Companies should leave the area. The bulk of people say if or wont let them earn a living we asked the company about this and it denied the accusations. The f. S. E. Continues to defend the logging practices of the 2 largest Timber Companies now operating in congo. Subsidiary and c. I. B. I have been true if she had been through into oracle ive seen the way that interns peoples are given separate School Training because theyre not going to be part of the ordinary schools by the other into the other groups of the population so ive seen all these things and i certainly know that Indigenous Peoples are being respected and that they are given access to more than 2 cities that they never ever had before. This is part of the land covered by c. I. B. s permit near pocono in northern congo. There do seem to be modern facilities here but these are mainly benefiting c. R. B. Employees and less so the bulk of people who live in the huge forest concession when this buck a woman carries her child as she walks through the streets asking for money as others in her situation she seems in the period the bucha have lived in harmony with nature for several 1000 years and now their lives have been disrupted by Timber Companies that have been approved by the f. S. E. And the forests to see what they might become we travel to brazil where large tracts of ancient forest have been replaced by eucalyptus plantations. These students are studying whether such monocultures meet the criteria for sustainable Forest Management. Their professor claimants lesseps kay teaches political ecology at the university of minas your eyes. This plenty was one of the 1st monocultures in brazil to receive the f. S. E. Seal of approval. He says that eucalyptus crops are popular because theyre inexpensive to maintain and can be harvested in just 10 years. But the monoculture crops also dry out the soil and dont provide a habitat for wildlife. So how did this plantation qualify for f s c approval. Because one can subsist on this sort of land use was once classified as nonsustainable by environmentalists we even said its extremely harmful pretty much the only thing worse than this type of monoculture would be to pave over the whole land. We asked Matthew Hansen to describe the spread of monocultures in brazil. So we zoom in to the area around you know up all this in the coast of this eco system thats called the bots atlantica you can see dramatic expansion when we see these blues these are new plantations and we see the pinks those are all the plantations that were cleared and regroup and f. S. E. Certified monocultures so i mean its a contradiction in terms right if its a literalist who was founded to combat and all that but monoculture is now monocultures are certified this is this is. Its a logical fallacy its a make sense. So that i dont agree with that i do agree that you got you have to have your. Your pope paper timber land uses somewhere because we all use these products and and. I dont think its a hard argument to make that they that this this time in our history they shouldnt be replacing natural force. This is Atlantic Forest on the east coast of brazil the level of biodiversity here used to be even higher than that of the Amazon Region today more than 90 percent of the atlantic rain forest has been destroyed. Only the precious hillsides remain largely untouched. Just a small proportion of this rain forest is actually under protection and even here illegal logging goes on. The pulp mill varicella was convicted of illegal deforestation in 2008 today it has f. E. C. Certification. But in the village of parities a local residents have been arguing with varicella about its land use policy. The land used to belong to the Catholic Church which then gave it to the people. But then there are cells started replacing the villagers being crops with eucalyptus plants. Here you can see the new crops growing right behind the residents houses. The eucalyptus plants suck up a lot of water leaving little for local peoples crops. There are so has made a lot of these people angry they gather to tell us of their experience. This man shows us some a very sells Promotional Materials which claim that the company pays close attention to the rights of the rural population. But that doesnt appear to be the case here. Its more for the rip off a lot of the people of parodies are say that very cell has driven them off their land. And their frustration is apparent i think it is that ever from one level of the movie that were here to some residents claim that the local police even showed up and forced them to leave their homes. I mean i like you where they came over at about 8 in the evening the police have close ties to drive so they didnt have a court order to fictionalise my wife and our one year old child were asleep at the time. But. I do you know if you got the Police Recruit they used machetes to hack our home to pieces the children werent even allowed to eat 1st we were just told to get out we were made to flee as if we were criminals to get. You off the group has now gone to court to try to get their land back until there is a conviction varicella will keep its f. S. E. Seal lambertson person is a very very complicated issue theres a court case ongoing as long as the court has shown going and various other sort of legally holding the land theres no problem with their certificate obviously once the court case has been decided and it depending on what the outcome will be then of course we expect rowsell to follow the outcome of the court. Professor the ship skews struggles with this decision by the f a c. He says this case says varicella occupying local farmers land in power diesel. Says i think its just incredible that the people here have to fight for land and food against a company that makes toilet paper for europe. This. Is i just cant get my head around that no matter how big picture i think this makes me really sad. Always. Perhaps parties 0 is an exception we drive through the large plantation toward the coast where another village has been affected by various sells land use policy. Professor of scheme has heard there is a dispute in that indigenous reserve to. As foreigners we have written permission to enter the reserve. When we arrive the residents are headed for a meeting to talk about varicella. We wait outside until the meeting has finished. And the tribal leaders then greet us they say varicella has taken their land and is now using it to grow eucalyptus plants. He tries to find out what sort of agreement the villagers worked out with farah sell old glory according to f. S. E. Guidelines companies have to negotiate with local residents before they take action. No sabi and no did that happen here. You know you know few days you will and there was a hearing but one of the chiefs got up and said that the cell was doing everything right. Hes from an area with tourism and the company paid him to say that. It upfront i thought you know. Thats a serious accusation and we wanted to talk to varicella about it. The companys certification experts 1st promised us an interview but then cancelled it. Here varicella is refusing to grant our additional request for a meeting. According to the f. E. C. Reports this dispute has been settled but indigenous groups say they feel very cell has stolen their land. As its you through the field at the eucalyptus plantation is wiping them out it was difficult for me to hear them say that. One of the tribal leaders said that the company is ruining the local environment and wiping them out. Eucalyptus crops have almost completely replaced the rain forest in this region. This has changed the face of the landscape. Paper products made from trees that were cut down here well have the f. S. E. Seal for sustainable Forest Management. Has created jobs here. You have to calculate how many jobs have been created protector and then weigh that against the number of people whove been deprived of their livelihood and in this case the numbers are way out of balance. If we create about 2000 jobs over hundreds of thousands of hectares and at the same time 50000 families lose their farmland and thats just not right. You believe. There is that if a company that has been checked every single year i think up certified in 2008 we have had several investigations into the claims that that came from difference they called us and the certification as far as we can see is still completely valid and theres a lot of good things to say. So the f. S. E. Is satisfied but what about the complaints from the villagers. Have been involved in a number of the formal complaints against questionable certificates on the 1st sea system none of those have succeeded in fact im not aware that any single complaint through the office the system has ever worked. This drone has just taken off at a large primeval forest on the white sea in european russia. Greenpeace employees villain the cheek and Thomas Henningsen want to shoot some video of clear cut logging in the devinsky forest the last remaining section of intact forest landscape here then the forest is. To plants and animals facing the threat of extinction with were. This forest is an ecological treasure trove with a wide variety of sensitive species. In this sub arctic climate the trees grow very slowly. Thats why the trunks are so thin. There are many rare musses lichens in insects in this ancient native forest. But here too a lot of trees have been cut down by companies that have the f. S. E. Seal of approval. On the up a c. Was a good idea at 1st year in russia but now its causing a lot of damage 1st Timber Companies are hiding behind the epis the seal because there are no ecologically Sustainable Operations here and companies that no doubt are logging even more including in the primary will forest with the f. S. E. Seal ripped names even if. The Timber Companies are allowed to clear up to 35. 00 hectares in one go. How do you feel when you see such that you ever see a clear cut 10 years after. You ever see how it actually grows back are you actually have forest again this area is not dead this area actually maybe not with exactly the same values actually grows back into forest that is managed and valuable for people and for nature. Of cardstock that area was clear cut just 5 or 6 years ago and its going to take centuries before it looks like a real forest again this is going to see you have a right yeah. If a sea certified areas in russia taken together are larger than denmark. The trees are also being cut down to supply western consumers. The plight of. These spruce logs look then women but the rings tell us that there are 60 to 70 years old. Theyre too small to be used for Wood Products so they turn these logs into poultry for paper or peter goelz the most of it is used to make disposable products like toilet paper or tissues or packaging the food for the population to sow the forests that once stood here is being turned into Paper Products and then tossed away. Peer into treasure for a cost move from professional. Tree. To the story. One simple action can have a profound impact look for products with the f. S. E. Logo and help protect the health of our forests for all forever. Our f. S. U. Certified forests really in good shape this team of scientists is trying to find out. Why these the Research Group is led by a german biologist and conservationist. Right all. The scientists have determined that the environmental damage is not confined to the loss of trees. Heavy logging equipment is also compacting the soil here. That means that water can no longer drain away making it very difficult for new trees to grow. This is the 1st Scientific Study to assess the impact of f. S. E. Certified logging since the organization was founded in 1993. Thats the researchers start by measuring trees in a noncertified area they also determine the age of the trees if a forest has a lot of old trees is considered healthy the team also measures the temperature on extremely hot or cold days a healthy forest will moderate the temperature beneath its tree canopy a damage forest cannot. This data will then be compared with the results from f. S. E. Certified areas to determine how much the Organization Helps forests. The f. S. E. Says its waiting for the results. Were very interested in the results of starting the professor and we have invited him to come here and present that to us because we would like tonight as we always want to learn from from. This is the university of our school where professor even she is presenting the preliminary results of his teams research. The study was commissioned by the w w f a Founding Member of the f. S. E. It says that f. S. U. Guidelines dont have much impact on how the forest is used the message is the change the station. Or course you have these joint goals of the last. Few the presentation unsettles the Timber Industry representatives present. After aebischer gave his talk one of the logging companies withdrew its permission for us to film on their land. Some managers fear the study could damage the russian Timber Industry we asked Matthew Hanson for his opinion. For if we go over to the ark angus region you can see very clearly. The clear cuts and we have to see the landscape. The idea that. Sustainable logging is represented through large scale clear cuts is difficult to understand and its that perversion that really bothers me both as a citizen and as a scientist where. If there is a program to do sustainable logging but in fact the facts the ground say its actually in opposition to sustainability. Its its has worst effects than being forthright to begin with so if youre for transparent people know what theyre buying and they sign up for that but if youre lying to the misleading them and they think that theyre doing this is stable thing with your product and in fact theyre not this is of course a worse worst case i think its true that the timber consuming public has been betrayed by the f. A c. And we being led to believe that these labels enable us to purchase these Timber Products with a clear conscience but actually we now know that these products can contain wood from sustainable sources from tropical rain forest from Indigenous Peoples lands even from forest your operations are completely illegal. When the f. E. C. Was created in 1993 the conservation is still was to stop clear cutting and save the primeval forest that gold is not being reached. Which is why in march 28th seen greenpeace announced it would not renew its membership in the sea. Because it also missed sea we left because the f. S. E. Unfortunately does not ensure that primeval forest are protected from logging and were good on kind of how its going to flog that we did for this is just the. Toughest for us if youre proposing a boycott against any timber from the amazon against any timber from the congo basin i think youre at the same time telling these countries that their forests should have no value or that they should have any benefit from the forest i think thats completely the wrong way. So the plantations will continue to expand and over the past 25 years the f. C. C. Has failed to stop. Timber companies from destroying large tracts of forest land around the world. The impact of all that longing has been dramatic. And i think that were now probably at the stage where we have to revert back to that idea the regulation by governments is what we need of a few we consume far too many disposable paper and Wood Products we have to reduce recycle and reuse and you know for. Me it seems we need legislation to save the primeval forests they cannot be protected with a simple seal. In. 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