Australian Forest Standard draws Green fire

After seven years of one-way communication, environmental lobby group, MyEnvironment has taken itself out of any new Australian Paper stakeholder engagements and wants PEFC to revoke the company’s AFS certification until a resolution has been made.

According to spokesperson, Sarah Rees, the PEFC standard is PR spinning bad forestry practices as environmentally friendly all over the globe.

“In Victoria, Australian Paper continues to produce its Reflex paper brand from wood from core habitat of the endangered leadbeater’s possum, and AFS and PEFC have failed to address community complaints on logging and consultation.

“Our experience is that these standards are not responding to legitimate community concern over destructive logging practices,” she says.

She maintains the AFS standard in Victoria has failed to provide meaningful assurance for consumers that forest products are sourced in an environmentally and socially responsible fashion. Australian Paper receives its wood from the Government-owned forestry group, VicForests, which has an AFS certification.

Key to the argument in regards to local impact, VicForests has maintained its PEFC endorsed AFS certification for the same products sourced from the same forests that did not meet FSC standards.

Pictured: Logging at Toolangi, Central Highlands


After accrediting body Rainforest Alliance was unable to judge Victoria’s native forests as being at ‘low risk’ of logging high conservation value forests despite a month extension, Australian Paper chose to remove the FSC label from its products. The Rainforest Alliance has now lost its right to FSC certify in Australia.

MyEnvironment claims that despite quarter million dollar fines and breaches of the law in regards to logging in recent years, Standards Accreditation International (SAI) Global continues to award the AFS certification. The accreditation body’s right to audit against FSC globally was recently suspended.

The lobby group states that despite being in possession of a large body of evidence of alleged major non-compliance by VicForests to the AFS standard, it continues to be ignored by AFS Limited, SIA Global and now PEFC.

With the increase in publicity and public scrutiny, the green group recommends that PEFC reconsider its continued involvement in Australian forestry standards or immediately review its responsibilities to satisfy stakeholder expectations.


My Say – Patrick Howard

There is a world of difference between responsible forestry and the rape of the environment. The printing industry requires paper that is sustainably harvested in order to be a sustainable industry itself.

Undoubtedly there are atrocious forestry practices in operation around the world. De-forestation is occurring for any number of economic reasons, from palm oil plantations to population pressure to paper pulp demand.

What is needed is a clear unequivocal standard for sustainable forestry and the procurement of timber for all its manifold uses. If the printing industry could be assured that such a lofty standard existed I have little doubt we could get industry-wide backing.

Unfortunately, no such standard exists. The battle between FSC (Forestry Stewardship Council) and PEFC (Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification) has as much to do with ideology on the one hand and commercial interests on the other.

There is a strong sense that FSC really does not approve of any type of forestry. It is so closely aligned with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) that it is easy to believe it would prefer to lock all forests away from commercial activity.

PEFC is compromised by its industry association. In many ways it is an industry body formed to attempt some type of self-regulation. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with that, indeed it would be amazing if there were no industry input, but it too often bends its own rules to accommodate recalcitrant members.

The result is the printing industry can either continue to support what is basically an anti-printing standard, FSC, or use the PEFC logo, which is continually under attack from environmentalists for greenwashing bad forestry practices.

Perhaps it is time for the printing industry, as an important end user of forestry products, to start its own standard system and create its own logo. At least then we will know what we are getting in to.