International standard for NZ forests

4 November 2010
 
International standard for NZ forests

For more information, please contact Colin Maunder, tel 0274 664 132 or Bill Gilbertson, tel 021 262 8620
 
New Zealand is hoping to have an international standard for the management of its plantation forests approved sometime next year.
 
The draft standard, which will apply to all forests with Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification, is now out for public comment. This follows several months of negotiation between representatives of the forest workforce, conservation and outdoor recreation groups, Maori interests and forest owners.
 
Project coordinator Colin Maunder says getting the agreement of such diverse groups has been a big achievement.
 
“But we still want input from anyone with an interest in forestry. It’s a very important part of the process,” he says.
 
The FSC offers the world’s best-known and arguably most rigorous system of certifying forest management. In affluent overseas markets its brand appears on everything from office stationery to designer furniture. Many high-end retailers require the FSC stamp of approval before stocking products which began life in a forest. 
 
The council requires owners of certified forests to manage them in the best interests of the environment and the community.
 
“FSC certification ensures that large areas of indigenous biodiversity on private land are being actively protected and enhanced,” Bill Gilbertson of Forest & Bird says.
 
“More than a million hectares of plantation forest in New Zealand are FSC-certified and about 10 per cent of this area will effectively be in privately-owned conservation areas. This is in addition to the habitat provided by plantations to native plants, birds, bats and invertebrates. It’s a big plus for the New Zealand environment.”      
 
The draft standard will, when it is approved, replace an interim one now in place. Reaching this point hasn’t been easy.
 
In 2003, negotiations broke down over three issues – the use of chemicals in forest management, the ability of Maori to convert manuka scrubland into plantation forest and the proportion of a holding that must be kept in managed indigenous vegetation. There was also concern among farm foresters that FSC paperwork was too onerous for owners of small forests.
 
“With goodwill on all sides and by using a skilled independent facilitator, we have found ways forward,” Maunder says. “Basically, we’ve made the rules more flexible without weakening the standards that make FSC certification meaningful.”
 
For example, the standard requires plantation forest owners to manage and restore an area of native vegetation equal to 10 per cent of the forest area. This can be readily achieved where forests are bisected by gullies in native vegetation, or where there are significant areas of wetland. But where forests have been planted into former pastureland this can be impractical.
 
The standard therefore allows the forest owner the flexibility to restore an equivalent area outside the forest unit, but ideally in the same ecological district, with the approval of a new body known as the National Initiative. This body will also set up a Chemical Standing Committee to assess applications to use vertebrate poisons like 1080 for possum and stoat control.
 
The hoops that small forest owners – those with less than 1000 hectares – have to jump through have also been made much less demanding.
 
To read the draft standard and to make a submission, go to www.nzfoa.org.nz/certification/thestandard. Submissions close Friday 19 November.
 
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