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Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20 - 35)
TUESDAY 21 JULY 1998
MR ANDREW
CHRISTIE-MILLER,
DR STEPHEN
HOWARD and MR NIGEL
DUDLEY
20. How long do you think we should leave
it before we review this particular standard—ten years or
more, or less?
(Dr Howard) I think, arbitrarily, you would probably
say five years, because there are fairly exhausting processes
to develop these standards. We can look as we learn at how we
should do this. If we have got this auditable standard, which
is based on the FSC principles and criteria, that will be down
to the level of a field checklist: we then know how that the standards
are being complied with. If that throws up difficulties, either
areas where we are being over-optimistic in what forestry can
deliver or where we are not being strict enough to meet the environmental,
social or economic criteria, then we can review it. As long as
we know we can review this, we can revisit it and it will still
operate in a consensus way—and we can get the environmental
groups, the economic groups etc to come together to agree on the
changes—then the timetable for review is not particularly
important, as long as we have got this constant monitoring.
21. Are you convinced that the voluntary
approach is good enough to protect the ancient and ecologically
significant forests?
(Dr Howard) That is why we also talked about protection
from a WWF perspective. Part of the Forest Inventory is the ancient
woodland inventory as well. We are still a bit unsure about the
extent of cover of ancient woodland; we know it is something around
330,000 hectares, but there is some degree of give or take on
those figures. So I think we need to look both at protection and
at forest management. I think an independent approach—especially
if Forest Enterprise goes for it and a lot of the private growers
go for it—can actually say that we are delivering a high
standard of forest management in the United Kingdom. Obviously,
in the areas that do not come under a voluntary approach, where
private growers do not go this route, they will still have to
apply for a Felling Licence, so it is not going to remove the
normal processes of checking forest management. It is a supplement.
22. Finally, Chairman, could I just ride
a hobby horse as well? I was born in the countryside and I used
to climb a lot of trees as a lad—as we all did. Now, when
I go round the same countryside and look at the farms, I see these
individual trees that I have known all my life in a very bad condition—along
the hedgerows, mainly. I am not talking about ancient woodland
or forests, these are individual trees—and there are thousands
of them—on individual farmers' land, who have given up caring
for them. Some have been struck by lightning—we all know
the condition. What do you think we should do about farmers who
have stopped caring for trees like that?
(Dr Howard) It is a good question. To be honest,
we have focused on the broader areas of forest issues, and if
we can, hopefully, all agree on a way forward there and have the
new targets mentioned and an auditable forest standard, then we
can look into the other areas. I do not know if there has been
any particular discussion on how to deal with this aspect.
(Mr Dudley) No, it is a problem. We have had problems
with individual trees in hedgerows over the last 20 or 30 years
that still have not been entirely explained—this may be
a pesticide-related problem, it may be a nitrate-related problem,
it may be salt from roads—but that is an issue we would
like to see addressed more clearly because, as you have indicated,
for a lot of people walking through the countryside those few
hedgerow trees are particularly important because they hold memories.
That is one of the reasons why Dr Howard said that qualitative
targets were as important as quantitative ones. There are some
aspects of trees and woodlands such as their aesthetic value or
the value to local communities on which it is very difficult to
put a figure. On the whole, if we have only quantitative targets
those are left out of the equation, whereas it is clear that when
one talks to people aspects like the spiritual or aesthetic values
of trees are very high in the public's list of important criteria
but they tend to be missed out. It is important that we bring
in those aspects, although that is difficult. That is perhaps
where local authorities, even parish councils and local village
communities, can begin to work together. A little focus and help
can make a difference.
Joan Walley
23. There is a whole range of different
grants available for planting. How can we ensure that the grants
available, given all you have said about the CAP and the policy
aspects, go where they need to go and that people do not just
react to them but want to apply for grants at every level, whether
it is large woodlands, national forests, community forests or
trees that may be damaged by cable-laying? How can you ensure
that with all the government departments and interest groups involved
such a policy strategy can work?
(Mr Christie-Miller) We come back to what we said
about the national forestry strategy. Over the past 15 to 20 years
there has been a streamlining of all the various available schemes.
There was a whole spectrum of schemes available through different
government departments. They have tended to be concentrated pretty
well in the woodland grant scheme. One of the criticisms of that
scheme is that it is one scheme for the whole country. We are
beginning to look at more ways of targeting grants more effectively
to particular regions or tree types. It could be in a particular
part of the country where the hedgerow tree was a major feature
that had been ravaged by Dutch elm or some other problem. It may
be that in that area there is a particular target for re-creating
hedgerow trees. There is a move towards targeting, but at this
point there is no great cohesive force that brings all this together.
There are some local authorities who still give grants and many
others do not. It needs to be brought together. We think that
some national framework is a way of addressing it.
24. How do you suggest that a national framework
is created? There may be some local authorities or areas in which
people have no idea of what may be available. Those who are in
the know get more and more, as we see with lottery funds. Presumably,
it would be exactly the same here.
(Mr Christie-Miller) Ignorance is certainly a
problem. The Forestry Commission is itself doing an increasing
amount by way of education through agricultural shows and other
fora to try to make the public generally more aware of what can
be done, where money can be accessed and so on. Perhaps that profile
needs to be raised.
25. Who is to raise it?
(Mr Christie-Miller) The Forestry Commission is
the government department that is responsible for forests and
trees. I think that that should take the lead. I would like to
see the Commission promoting the value of trees much more strongly
than it has done in the past.
26. Do you see it doing that?
(Mr Christie-Miller) It is beginning to think
about it, but it comes back to the problem of money. Like every
government department, its funds have been cut. It is a question
of putting resources into the right box.
(Mr Dudley) Perhaps this is an area in which we
can learn from other countries, in particular developing countries.
One is talking very much about tailoring solutions to local communities.
There is not a national answer. There are particular needs here
and there. In one part of the country there is a need for education;
in another there is a need for extra money. There are techniques
by which local communities can be involved in discussions about
forestry to find out what they want within a forest or forest
landscape. We have some experience in the UK, but there is much
more experience outside. The Forestry Commission carried out a
series of studies a few years ago which looked at information
that could be drawn from countries like Nepal, India and some
of the South American countries where communities worked quite
closely with local government to determine the best mix of forest
for those communities. That is something of which we have relatively
little experience. In the Forest of Dean there has been a long
and quite successful programme in place, and there are isolated
programmes in parts of Scotland. However, this could be undertaken
on a much larger scale. It would address the kind of nitty-gritty
local questions that came up which would not be addressed by a
national strategy. It is more a matter of a change of technique
than an overall change in legislation.
27. Do you see much evidence of Local Agenda
21 focusing and prioritising that issue?
(Dr Howard) Most Local Agenda 21 officers are
completely overwhelmed within local authorities. I have never
met one who is not completely committed to trying to do something.
It is a very challenging task.
Chairman
28. It is not one of their high priorities?
(Dr Howard) It may be. Where there is a local
woodland officer they may be working in this area but time and
resources may be very limited. We have a local authorities project
with the Soil Association to try to work on a number of issues
and help in this area. The first one on which we have worked is
local government and central government procurement which is a
massive area of concern for us. We have had a reasonable amount
of success in that regard. We are taking single issues at a time.
We also want to bring in other local authority issues, in particular
woodland.
Joan Walley
29. That is something which lends itself
particularly to audit. We would be grateful to receive any specific
proposals on procurement that you have which we may perhaps recommend
other governments departments to adopt.
(Dr Howard) We have surveyed 463 local authorities
to find out how many of them had responsible purchasing policies.
We return to the point that given that the UK imports between
85 and 87 per cent. of its timber and paper requirements it is
important that preference is given to material that is produced
in an environmentally and socially responsible manner. We found
that in many cases if there were a local authority purchasing
policy it just stipulated that it should not include any tropical
timber. That may be well intentioned but short-sighted in that
it give no incentives to producers in the tropics who are doing
a good job. There are not enough of them but there are some who
have to be able to gain a marketing benefit from doing a good
job. That project has been going for 18 months. It is harder than
we first realised. We have held a series of seminars and workshops
round the country to help advise local authorities on how to define
a policy that gives preference to independently certified timber
or paper from wherever it comes. They must have a policy and also
implement it. It is relatively simple to put a policy in place
but for local authorities the biggest challenge is its implementation.
There may be 20, 30, 50 or 100 people with some sort of responsibility
for procurement. How can one or two people working on Local Agenda
21 influence all of those people and make them understand and
implement the policy adequately? It is very challenging for local
government and also government departments. There was a recent
case in which the MoD purchased £60,000 of mahogany. That
should not go on. Government departments should have responsible
purchasing policies. If public money cannot be spent positively
there is little hope. We now work with 90 companies in the UK.
They are all trying to source responsibly independently certified
material. That represents about 15 per cent. of the UK's trade.
But we find it more challenging to work with local government
and government departments than the private sector, which is a
little ironic.
Chairman
30. To switch to the global scene, from
the point of view of the outsider it seems rather depressing.
There is indiscriminate logging going on in Brazil and West Africa;
there are fires raging out of control in Indonesia and so on.
How do you view the world scene in terms of forestry and forest
cover generally?
(Dr Howard) There are two or three major forces
at the moment. There is an expansion of international logging
companies. Frequently, they are not big companies and they can
move very quickly 50 bulldozers, say. They have moved out of areas
of South East Asia. The Philippines is down to 17 per cent. forest
cover whereas it used to be 80 per cent. Thailand has lost 50
per cent. of its forest in 25 years with fairly disastrous consequences.
One can go on round the region. It is pretty much a disaster zone.
Many of the logging companies that operated in that region are
now moving into the Congo Basin and into economies in transition
in Eastern Europe, the Russian Far East and areas of Latin America.
They move into areas where there is a vulnerable economy and they
can get very large concessions and "mine" out the forest.
The forest fires over the past 18 months have highlighted that.
We do not know how much has been lost. Perhaps five million hectares
of forest have gone up in smoke round the world. That has been
driven largely by the timber trade opening up forests and the
conversion to agricultural land. It is a series of disasters of
mismanagement. That is a gloomy picture. But the counterpoint
is the commitment to try to do it right in future with certified
forests. Forests that meet the Forest Stewardship Council's principles
and criteria for good management account for an area 10 million
hectares worldwide. That is an area two and a half times the size
of Wales. It is still small potatoes but it is growing almost
exponentially. That is taking place in Bolivia, Paraguay, Poland,
Sweden and areas in the UK. I think that we will see a big expansion
of areas in the UK. It is a global story in terms of areas that
are doing it right.
31. What is the incentive to do that?
(Dr Howard) Market access. For example, one has
90 companies in the UK who say that they will buy preferentially
from forests that have been certified. That accounts for £3
billion.
32. Are you talking about Marks & Spencer,
for example?
(Dr Howard) Not Marks & Spencer but B&Q,
Do-It-All, Sainsbury's Home Base and another 87 companies who
work with us. There are nine buyer groups worldwide involved in
this. We would like Marks & Spencer to come and talk to us,
but it has yet to embrace this wholeheartedly.
33. Does that include the USA?
(Dr Howard) The USA was slow to join up. We had
a meeting in Wales last week on this matter. In the US there is
a kind of alliance—not a buyers' group—for improved
forest management comprised of retailers, producers and so on.
The co-ordinator of that group came over to talk about it. They
have some quite exciting developments. The US has a major impact.
However, the UK is the second largest net importer of timber after
Japan. We have a major forest footprint. We know from the companies
with whom we work that the UK buys from 68 different countries.
That is documented. No matter where a tree is cut down in the
world a bit of the forest product will end up in the UK. Even
if it comes down to 1 or 2 per cent. of UK trade that can still
represents a purchasing power of tens of million of pounds. We
can therefore say either that that is an incentive to good forest
management or that the UK will buy at the cheapest price for the
quality it wants. Traditionally, the market has been price-driven
but increasingly environmental credentials are as important as
price.
Mr Loughton
34. Where is the loophole at the moment?
I agree with what you say. But if the businesses who buy these
products are policing it why are there enormous fires and clearances
taking place in the Far East? If one takes fishing, Unilever is
the largest buyer of fish in the world. It now has a policy, which
is beginning to work, that it will buy its fish only from ecologically
sustainable sources. Is it because the timber industry is too
fragmented for big players to say that they will not buy certain
timber? Presumably, somebody is buying the timber from these forests;
otherwise, the logging companies would not be felling it. What
is the loophole?
(Dr Howard) Recently, the Global Witness Report
highlighted illegal logging in Cambodia. The loophole is that
it takes a long time for changes to occur. We started working
with major retailers six or seven years ago here in the UK. We
recognised that there was a common interest here; we all wanted
a future for forests. How could we achieve it? Some of the new
so-called buyer groups have only just begun. The one in the US
has only just been formed and so far has very little penetration.
We may have 15 per cent. of the UK retail trade here which in
world terms is fairly modest. In Japan there is interest in this
matter but the largest importer of timber in the world still does
not have these policies in place throughout the private sector.
The bulk of forest products, which represent 2 per cent. of world
trade, is still price-driven, fickle and switches around in a
fairly indiscriminate fashion. This is a growing movement. It
sounds emotive. As an environmental NGO one may be accused of
scaremongering, but the next two or three decades may determine
whether or not one manages to secure large areas of forest under
good forest management linked to responsible purchasing or large
tracts of forest will disappear. It is a real black and white
story at the moment in many places. This is where central government
and local government purchasing policies can play a major role,
as well as government communication that they are behind such
a scheme. While in opposition Labour was supportive of this sort
of scheme. It has been a bit quieter in publicly promoting it.
It is one thing to help bring together the UK solution such as
the audit protocols and the standards to be applied—there
has been a positive role played by the Forestry Commission in
that respect—but it is another thing to promote public purchasing
policies. People must be made aware of these issues.
35. Is B & Q one of the biggest?
(Dr Howard) There are many interests involved.
It is one of the largest purchasers.
(Mr Dudley) One of the key loopholes is that currently
there is a large and growing illegal trade around the world. We
have just done a report on over 50 countries where illegal logging
is a problem. It is a particular problem for WWF because illegal
loggers tend to focus on the highest value forests; namely, natural
forests and unprotected areas. One way in which the UK Government
can help to stem that trade is by having different import policies.
At the moment and for many years we have imported illegally felled
timber. It is very difficult for customs and excise to block that.
Even though it knows something that has been exported illegally
from a country once it is on the high seas and in the dock it
has no powers to block it. We are one of the countries where illegally
exported timber regularly shows up in export statistics. If we
changed that it would make a real difference. WWF will be calling
for a global move against illegally felled and exported timber.
That is something where Britain can easily take a clear lead.
A good deal of the legal trade is pretty appalling too. It is
worth remembering that although the amount of timber that is felled
and traded is a tiny proportion of the timber extracted every
year—2 to 3 per cent. is internationally traded - nevertheless
that has a very large impact on the high bio-diversity forests.
The kind of changes that Steve outlines are at the beginning.
No one thought about certification six years ago. This is still
a very new move. That will be very important in future—far
more important than a simple analysis of the amount of timber
that is in the trade.
(Mr Christie-Miller) Only a tiny percentage is
traded. Of the global cut, well over 50 per cent. is used as fuel
wood mainly in developing countries. The ability to influence
those areas is very limited, but we are making a start. The UK
is a major importer of timber and therefore should be in a position
to influence matters, if it can get the sort of agreement that
it believes it is close to achieving in the UK. It is being watched
very closely by countries all round the world, particularly in
Scandinavia. We believe that the system to be established will
work and will then be picked up by other countries. But given
the strength of the pound at the moment obviously timber comes
from many different countries. At the moment we have a concern
about the Baltic states. We do not believe that they are operating
under the same environmental controls and systems that we have
imposed on ourselves in this country. Yet their timber is flowing
into this country at heavily discounted prices. My members say
that import levies should be imposed. It was done with fertilizers—why
not with timber? There are still plenty of loopholes. We find
one and another one opens up. The major advantage that we have
in the UK which did not exist 10 years ago is the much closer
liaison between environmental groups and the industry. We have
something called Forest Accord which is a statement of principles
and objectives drawn up by industry and NGOs. That is a useful
vehicle for discussing these issues and hopefully addressing the
issues as well.
(Dr Howard) We have a good relationship with a
number of industries. We work with FICGB and others. But the level
of awareness in some industries about where they purchase is extremely
low and the business is totally price-driven. We have tried to
find companies in the construction industry to work with. As with
the Baltic states, we are keen to push for a level playing field
on environmental and social issues for forest management. That
is why we want certification. We had a seminar in Latvia. You
cannot just close the door in the face of Latvian exports or put
levies on it. It might serve some purpose or benefit UK industry
but it would damage an economy in transition. We have a programme
office and model forest project there and have taken over with
us 10 members of the Ninety-Five Plus Group with whom we work
who source from Latvia. They have said that they want to see how
Latvia can move to a standard where its forest are certifiable
and it is meeting standards similar to those here or anywhere
else. There was a lot of positive feedback from that. Today 25
per cent. of the Latvian industry is interested in how it can
do this and working towards that. I think that we shall see some
progress there as well. That is how we can make a positive impact.
We cannot be totally self-sufficient; nor is that necessarily
desirable. But with our purchasing power we are able to push matters
forward.
Chairman: We have
to draw this session to a close. We have run out of the allotted
time. Thank you very much for your assistance.
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