Danzer, a Swiss-German timber giant using controversial sources in the Congo will no longer be able to use the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) label after yesterday when the FSC disassociated itself from the company. Most Americans haven’t heard of Danzer but the company does export large amounts of its veneer products to the U.S.

The FSC represents the strongest global forest product certification and we welcome this decision as no company like Danzer should be allowed to associate itself with one of the world’s most valuable green label.  Such a decision makes me optimistic about the FSC system because it can actually remove companies that truly don’t belong in the system. Nonetheless, the FSC still has a bit of work to do to ensure that it addresses other gaps that occur today in the system.

My colleague Danielle van Oijen from Greenpeace Netherlands explains more about Danzer’s controversial sources in the Congo:

“[This decision] is the culmination of an 18-month effort by Greenpeace following a complaint made in 2011. That complaint stated that while Danzer bore the FSC stamp and projected a ‘green’ image to the world, its own operations were involved in human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). According to the independent forest monitor in DRC, the company was logging illegally on a systematic scale in 2011 when it received an FSC certificate for controlled wood.

The FSC has a set of minimum criteria for companies it will associate with – the Policy for Association. This is done to prevent the bad and the ugly from joining the scheme and helping to maintain FSC credibility in the marketplace.

The Policy for Association should exclude companies from the FSC that are active in deforestation, illegal logging, human rights abuses, destroying high conservation value forests and using GMOs. The FSC has now done the right thing to protect its reputation and brand by breaking ties with the Danzer group.

To exemplify why all of this is so crucial it is worth travelling back and looking at why Greenpeace International filed the complaint against Danzer.

In May 2011 the police and military were called by Siforco – at that time a subsidiary of Danzer – to quell protests by local communities in Yasilika against the company’s operations and their failure to fulfil social obligations.

Many of the local community were subsequently injured and had the their properties destroyed. There were also allegations of rape. One person later reportedly died of their injuries.

For Greenpeace, the case was clear-cut: Danzer needed to bear some responsibility for the company’s involvement in these violations. We had been documenting conflicts in the company’s logging areas in the DRC since 2005 and this was not an isolated incident.

We welcome FSC’s show of teeth, although it is still unclear if this will help the people of the DRC and other countries or if it will rectify past transgressions by Danzer. But, it does send the right message. It is an important signal for forest managers that these practices are totally unacceptable and that they can be held responsible for their actions.

Greenpeace does not expect any FSC certificates to be handed out in the DRC in the near future as companies are not ready for them and neither is the FSC. This decision underlines that.

Unfortunately, the Yalisika case is not an isolated event. Violent conflicts occur frequently in the DRC where the logging sector is in a state of organised chaos.

The FSC’s decision will hopefully spark a long awaited process to strengthen its system and make it credible in high risk areas where good governance, the rule of law, civil society are lacking and corruption is common practice.

Since the complaint was made Danzer has divested Siforco and sold its concession to Groupe Blattner Elwyn.

But what became clear today is that it cannot just sell up and walk away from the problems it has caused in the past. It will now have to pay for it by losing its certificates and do what it should have done years ago – respect the rights of local people and provide them with benefits.”

Sonora Island is the ‘tail-end’ of the Great Bear Rainforest (or depending on your orientation, it’s the head of the Great Bear).  It’s around 160 square kilometers of primarily mountainous terrain, and mostly under forest cover. Homes are sporadically located along its coastline with access by boat and floatplane only.  It’s part of unceded aboriginal traditional territories of three First Nations.

Like so much of the southern part of the Great Bear Rainforest, Sonora has been subjected to unsustainable levels of industrial logging from last century onwards, placing many old-growth ecosystems at high ecological risk.  Yet there remains on Sonora amazing stands of old-growth forests including Douglas firs, which sadly are becoming rare on the coast and Vancouver Island.

Northern Goshawk, an at-risk species key to assessing the health of the Great Bear Rainforest, also inhabits the island. In fact I was privileged to see two nests of this special bird of prey and to hear its unique call. Very special – I was quite taken by its eerie cry.

Under the Great Bear Rainforest Agreements, the region is supposed to be logged under Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM). Key to EBM is a system of logging regulations intended to lift the region out of its high-risk status over time; logging companies have to identify and set aside at-risk ecosystems and habitat of key species like the Northern Goshawk (EBM is slightly different for the north and central coasts, where the majority of old-growth ecosystems aren’t at high risk).

We expect then that all logging companies in the region should be operating under EBM rules and working towards greater levels of protection as per the 2009 Agreements. However on Sonora Island, as I and a few other environmental allies recently found out at the invitation of the community, it appears TimberWest Forest Corporation has not been properly adhering to the spirit and intent of EBM.

TimberWest identified blocks for clear-cutting on the island which they called ‘second-growth’. However given the impressive local ecological knowledge and understanding of EBM, members of the community have contested this and other ways in which the company is managing its operations. Sonorites identified significant old-growth ecosystems which are in deficit across the region and which under EBM should be managed differently (ie set aside). Indeed, in visiting these old-growth ecosystems within the proposed blocks, it’s so clear this is the case.

I was lucky to go on two field trips in the last few weeks and each time I became more impressed with the beauty and rarity of these old-growth forests – aside from the huge trees, how often these days can one drink from a free-flowing stream without worry of contamination. I was also amazed by the intimate knowledge and passion Sonorites have for these stands, and with the deftness of our hosts – I couldn’t even keep up with a young mother and her 14-month old at her back as we clambered (well they clambered, I lumbered) over extraordinarily twisted, rocky, at-times steep and knotty-rooted terrain with the rich deep scents of massive cedars and firs decomposing everywhere.

Accompanied by company officials, we were told the cut-blocks were all ‘second-growth’ forests (although, naturally disturbed by fire and wind a century ago, some these forests haven’t been logged), and that there were insufficient old-growth trees to designate the forests as old-growth ecosystems. And yet in one proposed cut-block (11-370) I saw a lot of old-growth trees – in fact the community took it upon itself to count and label up to 160 old Cedar and Douglas fir. We were also shown a logging road punched through what was once a stand of old-growth, if the huge trees lying by the side of the road was anything to go by. The more we walked the more it became clear that such activity will be, and is, fragmenting interconnected veins of old-growth ecosystems.

The proposed cut-blocks and the roads built (and yet-to-be-built) were planned without landscape-level plans that inform where under EBM old-growth areas – ESPECIALLY those at high ecological risk – are to be set aside. It was so evident that such areas deemed ‘second-growth’ and yet never logged, were old-growth ecosystems. Some of the photos in this blog make that pretty obvious.

In essence, since Sonora Island has a deficit of significant types of old-growth ecosystems, planning by the company at the broader scale should have happened under EBM to protect some of these ecosystems. This didn’t appear to happen. Indeed it seems that TimberWest,given past practice, didn’t appear to take the proper and prudent approach to planning under EBM.

To their credit, TimberWest is responding to community concerns: they’ve agreed to set aside some areas of concern, and have committed to producing landscape-level maps.

But I remain perturbed over a number of issues: how does TimberWest intend to harvest on Sonora given it’s at high ecological risk; definitions of ‘old-growth’ and ‘second-growth’; what the spirit and intent of EBM fundamentally is; and the provincial role – where was the oversight in ensuring TimberWest was properly following EBM?

Further, what I’ve encountered in this situation is a microcosm of what’s underway at the macrocosm level as we and our environmental allies seek to help fully implement EBM across the entire Great Bear Rainforest, in collaboration with the logging industry and the governments of British Columbia and First Nations of the region. More specifically is a core issue: how to square the need to set aside endangered old-growth ecosystems that happen to be the most productive in terms of high-value timber.

Whale Sharks in Cenderawasih Bay © Paul Hilton / Greenpeace

On this International Day for Biological Diversity, we want to show you stunning images from one of the world’s richest places in biodiversity: Indonesia. From whale sharks, to abundant coral reefs and forests teeming with life, the Greenpeace ship the Rainbow Warrior is currently documenting the beauty and fragility of Indonesia’s natural environment.

The message in these images is simple: this is what we stand to lose if we don’t act now.

Pristine Reefs in Cenderawasih Bay © Paul Hilton / Greenpeace

If our planet is to sustain life on earth in the future and be protected from environmental destruction, we need action by governments to protect our living, breathing oceans and forests and to halt biodiversity loss.

The fragile state of Indonesia’s oceans and forests are a clear reminder of how marine and forest life is at risk from industrial overfishing and relentless deforestation.

Forest in Papua © Paul Hilton / Greenpeace

Indonesia has at least 20% of the world’s total biodiversity and is home to more than 30,000 recorded species of plants and more than 3,000 mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians.

Coral Reef at Dampier Straight Raja Ampat © Paul Hilton / Greenpeace

Approximately 10% of the world’s rainforests are located in Indonesia. Fifty years ago, 82% of the country was covered with forests but in the last decade this has dropped to 48% due to relentless deforestation for paper and palm oil plantations and mining.

Indonesia’s seas are also among the most diverse coastal and marine habitats. Areas like Raja Ampat, in West Papua, are claimed to be among the richest spots in biodiversity on Earth. But the country’s coral reefs are considered to be among the world’s most threatened biodiversity hotspots, at risk from overfishing, pollution and climate change.

Black-capped Lory in Papua © Paul Hilton / Greenpeace

Continued inaction is not an option.

We must move now to stop destructive industrial overfishing in order to restore our oceans to health and take steps to achieve zero deforestation.

Check out how you can support or join us.

Bruce Wrobel, the chief executive of Herakles Farms, claims his company’s efforts to flatten a chunk of Cameroon’s dense rainforest to develop a palm oil plantation are borne of a desire to address a “dire humanitarian need”.

Yet this week Herakles has had to suspend its activities in Cameroon following a forestry ministry order for the company to halt clearing work at their Talangaye nursery in the southwest region of the country.

Greenpeace has long been among those calling out Wrobel and his company over their failure to tell the real truth over their project. The suspension of work is merely the latest evidence that the proposed plantation is a mess, despite the company’s ever-present PR machine.

In contravention of national law, in the face of local opposition and a huge threat to the local environment, the development is simply the wrong project in the wrong place and it needs to be stopped.

Today, together with the Oakland Institute we have released a new report revealing just how big the discrepancy is between what Wrobel and his friends say publicly and what they are saying to potential investors.

Compiled through confidential internal Herakles documents, here some of the biggest fibs exposed in Herakles Exposed.

The reality: Herakles has yet to receive a land lease from the Cameroonian government and thus possesses no right to develop its concession area. It has been in violation of national law since 2010. The new order from the forestry ministry again proves Herakles has far from all the permissions required.

The claim: Herakles does not tolerate corruption.

The reality: Evidence strongly suggests Herakles has resorted to bribery, the offer of cash gifts and promises of employment to obtain the consent of some local communities and the government to facilitate the project.

The claim: In a widely circulated open letter of 2012 by Herakles CEO Bruce Wrobel, the company claimed that all timber generated by the project’s massive deforestation would benefit the Cameroonian government.

The reality: In direct contradiction to Wrobel’s public claim, however, Herakles’ presentations intended to attract investors has estimated the company may bank US$60 – US$90 million on the sale of timber and brags about the “profit uplift”.  We feel sorry for financiers that have been tempted by Herakles profit projections because Cameroonian law states that only accredited logging companies can commercialise timber. And as Wrobel himself wrote, Herakles “are not commercial loggers”.

The claim: Herakles will produce 34 tonnes of palm bunches (FFB) per hectare at peak production.

The reality: The most experienced palm producers in Africa yield 26 tonnes FFB per hectare and most plantations yield less than 20 tonnes FFB at peak production.

The reality: The company promises in an investment advisory it would clear more than 10,000 hectares of land in order to plant 1.5 million oil palm seedlings. However, internal communications from employees reveal Herakles is in no position to clear that much land and that the seedlings and nursery are already overgrown by nine months, meaning work is unable to proceed at the advertised speed.

Okay, so Herakles is not the first American or international company to employ questionable business practices abroad … so why does it matter so much?

Since 2008 there has been a massive land rush on the African continent as foreign companies and governments look to produce commodities, biofuels, and food staples in addition to asserting foreign control over natural resources such as timber, minerals and water. The heavily forested areas of the Congo Basin are prime targets as companies search for rich soil in areas with a low population density.

If Herakles’ project succeeds – despite the illegalities, the massive deforestation, destruction of local livelihoods and false claims to investors – many other investors may attempt to do the same.

That is why the project must be stopped – permanently. Tell Herackles Farms CEO that you the palm oil project in Cameroon is not sustainable development.

Forest Clearance in Kalimantan, Indonesia

Although it may not have made it to the front page of our newspapers here in the US, there was big news this week for our planet and for some of the last remaining tropical rainforests. The President of Indonesia has extended the forest moratorium, protecting roughly 20 million acres of forest from the threat of deforestation. This was great news, but it does not solve the entire problem because plenty of Indonesia’s forests were left unprotected and deforestation continues to wreak havoc there. Here is Yuyun Indradi, one of my Indonesian colleagues’ account of the news.

I have been fielding calls non-stop over the last couple of days, because as you may have noticed, there has been widespread coverage lately (see here, here and here) on the Indonesian government’s extension of its forest moratorium.

It’s good news.

And it’s encouraging that the President of Indonesia, known as SBY, is renewing his commitment to protect forests – and cut my country’s massive carbon emissions. If the powerful palm oil lobby here in Indonesia had got their way for instance, the forest moratorium would have been scrapped and there would be a free for all to clear land for pulp and paper, palm oil and mining concessions.

Thankfully that did not happen.

But sadly, the moratorium still doesn’t go far enough. As I’ve been telling journalists who have asked for our view on the moratorium extension, the President did not go far enough – he did not strengthen the moratorium to cover all forests and peatland. Like the previous moratorium, the extension only covers primary forests, and rather than ALL natural forest and peatland. This is what’s really needed if we want to save Indonesia’s remaining tigers and orangutans, which are under threat from relentless palm oil, and pulp and paper expansion.

Why is there a moratorium anyway?

A shocking 85% of Indonesia’s emissions are from deforestation and peatland clearance, making Indonesia one of the largest greenhouse gas emitters on the planet, behind countries such as China and the United States. Norway is funding Indonesia’s forests and climate initiative to the tune of US$1 billion, with the aim to create an incentive to protect forests in Indonesia and cut greenhouse gas emissions. It’s a noble aim, and one we have been lobbying (both quietly and loudly) for years now.

So in May 2011, Indonesia introduced a two-year moratorium on permits for new concessions in primary forests and peatlands. While this moratorium was a welcome step in terms of the signals it sent, in practice most of the primary forests that it covers are already legally protected; the remainder are largely inaccessible and not under immediate threat of development. However, it leaves almost 50% of Indonesia’s primary forests and peatlands without any protection as they lie within already designated concessions and other significant areas of high carbon forest are not covered by the moratorium, as they are considered to be secondary forests.

The new two-year moratorium does nothing to fix that.

And furthermore, it does nothing about crucial issues of governance, which we feel goes to the heart of the matter. Without proper oversight and enforcement, the moratorium is a weak decree.

We have closely monitored the moratorium’s implementation, and for the two years during the last moratorium we still found cases of overlap with concessions and some deforestation (encroachment) in protected areas.

That’s not to mention that the Ministry of Forestry has changed forest functions (from protected forest to production forest) and forest status from forest area to non-forest area.

So what are we going to do?

A lot.

More work needs to be done to harmonize spatial planning, developing sectoral policies and maps, stronger law enforcement measures (including addressing corruption and money laundering in the forest sector) and mechanisms for social conflict resolution. We will be pushing (quietly and loudly) to get this done.

And we’ll continue investigating and publicizing cases of deforestation, the companies responsible and the laws that need strengthening.

We’ll remind the President that the path to zero deforestation means more than signing a decree.