Forest certification in India

Forest certification in India

Subject :ENVIRONMENT

Section: Ecosystem  

Context: The certification industry offers a multi-layer audit system that seeks to authenticate the origin, legality, and sustainability of forest-based products.

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• Large-scale destruction of forests has always been a concern for the environment, but with climate change, deforestation has become a critically sensitive issue globally in recent years.
• Forests absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide that is emitted in various economic activities, keeping a check on global warming. At the Glasgow climate meeting in 2021, more than 100 countries took a pledge to stop, and start reversing, deforestation by 2030.
• Europe and the United States have passed laws that regulate the entry and sale of forest-based products in their markets to present an environment-friendly image.
• This is where the certification industry comes in offering a multi-layer audit system that seeks to authenticate the origin, legality, and sustainability of forest-based products such as timber, furniture, handicraft, paper and pulp, rubber, and many more.
• Stopping deforestation does not mean forests cannot be harvested in a sustainable manner for the products. In fact, periodic harvesting of trees is necessary and healthy for forests. Trees have a life span, beyond which they die and decay.
• Also, after a certain age, the capacity of trees to absorb carbon dioxide gets saturated. Younger and fresher trees are more efficient at capturing carbon dioxide. The problem arises only when trees are felled indiscriminately, and the cutting of forests outpaces their natural regeneration.

Forest Certification Standards

• Two major international standards for sustainable management of forests and forest-based products.
  • One has been developed by Forest Stewardship Council, or FSC
  • Other by Programme for Endorsement of Forest Certifications, or PEFC.
• Organisations like FSC or PEFC are only the developers and owners of standards. They are not involved in the evaluation and auditing of the processes being followed by the forest managers or manufacturers or traders of forest-based products. That is the job of certification bodies authorised by FSC or PEFC.
• The certification bodies often subcontract their work to smaller organisations.
• PEFC does not insist on the use of its own standards. Instead, like its name suggests, it endorses the ‘national’ standards of any country if they are aligned with its own.
• Two main types of certification are on offer: forest management (FM) and Chain of Custody (CoC).
• CoC certification is meant to guarantee the traceability of a forest product like timber throughout the supply chain from origin to market.
• These standards have been developed by the New Delhi-based nonprofit Network for Certification and Conservation of Forests (NCCF).

India-specific standards

• Based on the recommendations of an expert committee in 2005, the Environment Ministry had asked relevant institutions like the Bhopal-based Indian Institute of Forest Management to draw up national forest standards. Considerable work was done, and a draft Cabinet note seeking the government’s approval for setting up such standards was drawn up. However, the effort did not come to fruition.
• When the NCCF came into being in 2015, offering PEFC certification in India, the Environment Ministry nominated an officer on the governing board, lending it official legitimacy. But the nomination was later withdrawn. Last year, the Ministry associated itself with FSC, by launching its new India standards.