Room for Improvement
VicForests has a snowball’s hope in hell of gaining the green tick of approval from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), an international wood certification body.
It had a preliminary audit carried out on its logging management and it failed dismally. This didn’t stop it from claiming in a media release that the auditors recognised the wonderful job they do (!?)
Several media outlets (ABC & SMH) picked this up and VicForests was forced to admit that they could need to clean up their act, especially in regards to clearfelling old growth and burning logged forests. They might also need to rethink their conversion of diverse forests into single age, single species tree crops and destroying valuable forests that support threatened species like Leadbeaters Possum, Sooty Owls, Potoroos, Greater Gliders and Quolls. Those few things for starters would stop them from logging native forests.
The Australian’s article said:
The negative findings relate to even the lowest form of FSC certification, suggesting VicForests’ aim of achieving the highest level will require fundamental changes… (and that it) “will likely require significant modifications to the current forest management system to meet the requirements”. In particular, the report warns VicForests “should continue to explore -alternative harvest prescriptions … to more effectively demonstrate that its silvicultural and other management practices are appropriate for forest ecosystem function, structure, diversity”.
It warns … that VicForests’ approach to old-growth logging is an area of possible “major nonconformity” with certification standards.