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CBP: focus on group certification of community forestry

Final report FSAS

18-01-2013 Latest news

Including community forests in the Congo Basin Program
A large and increasing portion of the Cameroonian forest (non-permanent forest estate) has come or is coming under control of communities; in 2010 some 180 Community Forest Enterprises had signed management agreements, covering 677,000 ha. Another 300,000 ha is in the application phase. None of the Community Forest Enterprises is currently certified, nor can it be expected that this will happen in the next 3-5 years autonomously. Reasons are: practically none of their buyers requires FSC certification, low volumes and high costs of certification.

 

FSAS concludes that the time has not yet come to engage concession holders for partnerships with community forest enterprises. The CBP can however play a role and provide incentives to (a group of) Community Forest Enterprises to overcome the abovementioned hurdles.

 

CBP support to community forestry should start by working with the most advanced CFEs which have sufficient and accessible commercial standing timber volumes. Through a step by step approach capacities can gradually be built up towards the ultimate aim of FSC certification with intermediate milestones of legal verification and Controlled Wood. During the process intermediate assessments should be made to ensure the profitability of pursuing FSC Group certification.

 

The Congo Basin Program has taken further steps down this road and it will do a pilot project on group certification of community forests in cooperation with Fair Tropical Timber, see previous newsitem 'Including community foresters'.

 

Buddy system service providers
Even though 9 service providers showed serious interest, none of them submitted a buddy proposal in the end. The main bottleneck was the very limited demand for CBP services by concession holders so far. As a result, service providers were not sure if their effort for a buddy proposal would indeed lead to additional sales of services.

 

To read the full report, click here (61 pages, 1.6 Mb).

To read the acces to finance report, click here (14 pages, 484.6 Kb).

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The CBP assists and guides concession holders in the process to FSC certification and better market position through co-funding of a number of relevant services. If you are interested in participating, please contact us.

Partners

  • ‘By becoming a partner of the Congo Basin Program, Corà Wood Gabon shows its firm commitment to continuously improving its forest harvesting practices with a clear objective to reach the performance level as required by the principles and criteria of the FSC standard for sustainable forestry before the end of 2015.’

    Corà Wood Gabon S.A. Forestry company

  • ‘A pioneer of forest certification in the Congo Basin, Wijma Cameroon SA was the first company in the region to become FSC TM certified in 2005. In December 2011, Wijma Cameroon SA was also the first company to obtain a certificate FSC TM Group Management (Group Wijma Cameroon) in the Congo Basin. Given its long experience in forest management, Wijma Cameroon SA has decided to share his experience in accompanying several other companies in this way. Thus, with support and accompaniment, companies CAFECO SA, CFK SA and SCIEB SA were certified respectively in 2010, 2011 and 2012 on all of their titles. Wijma Cameroon SA has decided to join the CBP to be supported in his efforts and determination to maintain its FSC TM certificates, those of its partners and to support new companies on this track.’

    Wijma Cameroon S.A.

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