This unexpected, but meaningful question was raised by the participants of the round table meeting held on 29 November 2017 in the office of the Silver Taiga Foundation for Sustainable Development. The topic for the conversation was relations with uncertified forestry companies that have undertaken an obligation to follow the Standard for the so-called controlled wood. The round table meeting was entitled respectively – Local Residents and Uncertified Forestry Business (Mechanism for FSC Controlled Wood Standard, Public Access to Logging Information Following Forest Auctions). The event was arranged with the support of WWF as part of the Barents-Baltic Program Nature and Man.
Vadim Krasnopolsky, WWF Russia project coordinator, and Nadezhda Iniyeva, WWF Russia expert
Representatives of Mondi Syktyvkar and local communities of some of the Komi forestry areas got together to discuss possible options for the public participation in the forest management process. The Silver Taiga Foundation has conducted consultations on sustainable forest management for several years, so public activists are now well informed about the FSC certification, however, they know little of the Controlled Wood Standard, as the meeting revealed.
All attention to the screen
The round table meeting was attended by public activists of Kortkeros, Syktyvdin, Priluzye and Udora districts of the Komi Republic who represent public forest councils of rural areas and the Komi Voytyr Interregional Public Movement. Silver Taiga’s Valentina Semyashkina, Nikolay Shuktomov and Olga Sazhina reported to the participants on the FSC Controlled Wood Standard mechanism and the procedure of forestry auctions in the Republic.
Nikolay Shuktomov, Silver Taiga Foundation Forestry Coordinator
A lot of logging companies operate in the Komi Republic, however, it was Mondi Syktyvkar that was invited to the meeting, as it is one of the biggest FSC certificate holders and one of the key consumers of wood in the region. The mill has its own harvesting division, in addition, it purchases wood from other non-certified companies, as the amount of own certified wood is not enough to cover the demand. Interaction with external suppliers imposes additional liabilities for the company. The company meets the FSC Certification Standard and FSC Controlled Wood Standard requirements through setting certain requirements for the suppliers and checking their compliance.
‘The controlled wood standard was introduced in 2004, and it is quite difficult to be fulfilled. Some of the companies haven’t yet started operating under the new standard, even though the transition period was prolonged twice. The debates are still ongoing regarding what to do with the standard’, Marina Korolyova, head of certification and environment department, Forestry, Mondi Syktyvkar, said at the meeting.
One of the causes that triggered the Controlled Wood Standard was the need to provide processing companies with the opportunity to use non-certified wood in the production process by mixing it with certified material in order to mark the finished goods with the FSC Mix label. Nevertheless, to make it possible the company has to do a lot to meet complex FSC requirements.
Tatyana Dyukova from Mondi Syktyvkar’s certification and environment department shared the experience of how the FSC Controlled Wood Standard operates.
Tatyana Dyukova, expert of the certification and environment department, Mondi Syktyvkar
To exclude raw material from inacceptable sources to meet the Controlled Wood Standard requirements the company makes planned and unplanned audits of contracting and subcontracting organizations. Unplanned checks are conducted in case of any claims with regard to suppliers’ or subsuppliers’ failure to meet the requirements for controlled wood. The checks are held by the company’s employees, but as the voluntary forest certification is based on the principle of transparency for the public, representatives of stakeholders, as well as public activists, are also invited to participate.
A special focus is given by the company to settling of heated conflicts related to traditional rights of the locals, including the ones for resource management, and resolution of disputes arising from observing cultural interests of indigenous peoples and their traditional and cultural self-identification.
‘To take risk mitigating measures the company studies public opinion, checks if there are any heated conflicts, consults with district and rural administrations, talks to specialists from district forestries and representatives of NGOs like Komi Voytyr and the Komi Republic Association of Hunters and Fishers. Any interested party may take part in the auditing process, the company considers all complaints in line with the established procedure and takes appropriate measures, as it decides whether it will cooperate with the violating supplier or not’, Tatyana Dyukova said in her report.
The company gets the information via requests. All mail correspondence is being currently replaced by e-mailing. However, many public activists have no access to the Internet, so consultations are arranged with them by phone. The survey shows if there are any complaints or conflicts arising from the activity of this or that supplier.
Exchanging opinions
The participants of the meeting wondered if it was possible to track the source of wood designated for housing construction. How can individuals find out if the house they are building will be made of certified wood? According to Tatyana Dyukova, information about FSC certified companies is in public access, the list of FSC certificate holders can be found at the website of the Russian FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) office https://ru.fsc.org/ru-ru/cert/fsc_companii. But the information on companies meeting the controlled wood standard is a commercial secret, as Tatyana reported. ‘It is confidential information, but stakeholders, including public activists, are entitled for this information, and we are ready to provide you with the lists of companies supplying wood to Mondi Syktyvkar from various districts’, Tatyana said.
The issue regarding “integrity” of the sources of wood for individual housing construction raised at the meeting was quite significant. It has been thought up to the present time that only big companies supplying goods to the environmentally sensitive European market have to get certification. But if consumers at the Komi Republic market will pay that much attention to product labelling as foreign buyers, small companies will also have to obtain certificates, otherwise their wood will not ne demanded. At the moment small businesses and self-employed entrepreneurs dealing with logging and wood processing in Komi find it impossible to get FSC certificates due to high cost of the above, services of auditors are unaffordable for small companies.
To summarize the results of the round table meeting facilitated by Silver Taiga head of the administration of the Spasorub village, Priluzye district, noted that she had finally built the system with all the FSC information coming from different sources. It turned out that she, just like many others, missed the only information “puzzle” – the one regarding controlled wood. Therefore, according to her, it will be easier for the interested parties to build relations with all forest management process participants, as now each of the parties understands its objective.
Natalia Vetoshkina, representative of the public forest council of Keres, Kortkeros district, and Oksana Pomysova, head of Spasorub administration, Priluzye district
‘Some time ago we managed to protect the interests of the local population in the conflict with a certified company. The locals were provided with 4 quartiles of forest for traditional use. At this meeting we learnt how to build relations with a non-certified company fulfilling the Controlled Wood Standard. Informed means protected. Today we got some guidance for action. I can’t help waiting, I want to bring some of the violations to light’, Vasily Mikhailov, representative of the public forest council of Keres, Kortkeros district, joked.
Vasily Mikhailov, representative of the public forest council of Keres, Kortkeros district
Most of the round table participants were happy to note young activists at the meeting. The young people showed their readiness to participate in the events under the international Barents-Baltic Program Nature and Man spoken about by Vadim Krasnopolsky, project coordinator of World Wildlife Fund (WWF Russia, Barents Sea office). In particular, he said that Murmansk region is conducting forest regeneration activities under this project. Near the Pomor village of Kuzomen a desert is emerging – more and more sand can be found in the area. Therefore, regeneration activities have been launched as part of the project. It is notable that all the activities involve school children and school forestries. Teachers Ivan Tugolukov (Priluzye district) and Mikhail Gabov (Kortkeros district), who were present at the meeting as well, said they were ready to start work on revival and activation of school forestries in their villages.
Ivan Tugolukov, representative of the public forest council of Priluzye district
FUTURE TOUR OPERATORS TOOK AN INTEREST IN MODEL RIVER MEZEN PROJECT
| «Model river «Mezen» project by Just AuthorLast week Silver Taiga specialists presented the Model River Mezen project to the participants of Udora community in Syktyvkar as the project is being realized mainly in Udora district of Komi.
Silver Taiga Deputy Director Valentina Semyashkina, Model River Mezen project coordinator Nikolay Shilov and PR specialist Olga Sazhina presented different activities of the Foundation carried out in Udora district under Model River Mezen project to the students of the tourism department of Syktyvkar Pedagogical College.
Silver Taiga Deputy Director Valentina Semyashkina
Future tour operators learned about educational campaign of the Foundation carried out in cooperation with the educational and cultural institutions of the district as well as with the local tour companies. Nikolay Shilov spoke about the activity devoted to the fish resources conservation of Mezen River and its tributaries, which is the main tourist potential of the district. Olga Sazhina told about the inter-village Mezen Day event held for the first time last summer in Udora district. The Mezen Day is going to be a tradition.
According to the students, Silver Taiga experience can significantly help the entrepreneurs to develop their tourist business in Udora district of Komi.
Participants of the meeting
FAR FROM CHILDISH ISSUES
| «Model river «Mezen» project by Just AuthorWere reviewed during the environmental and regional study conference Istoki (literally “Beginnings”) held on February 3, 2018 in Usogorsk village (Udora district of Komi). The conference was organized by the Silver Taiga Foundation under Model River Mezen project with the help of the Education Department of Udora district. The schoolchildren from Usogorsk, Vazhgort and Glotovo villages of Udora district participated in the conference as well as the representatives of the Usogorsk Children Activity Center and Komi Republican Ecological Center from Syktyvkar.
«We decided to make the conference environmental and regional at the same time as our beginnings include nature around us, history of our native village, house and our family. If people know their beginnings, they will live a happy life even if they will be far from their native places», this was the opening speech of the Silver Taiga Deputy Director, the chairman of the conference jury Valentina Semyashkina.
The Silver Taiga Deputy Director Valentina Semyashkina
This year a wide variety of topics had been chosen by the schoolchildren for investigation. Among them are Mezen river diversion process, lamprey variety, traditional fishing gears, Udora district protected areas inventory. It should be noted that the report about the traditional fishing gears of Komi people was accompanied by the collection of the ancient fishing gears. There were also unusual works with the slope of literary studies. Two research works were devoted to Vashka and Irva rivers.
The conference jury
The conference juryAccording to the conference conditions, the schoolchildren from 7-11 forms are invited to participate, but every time there are children of junior school. This year the youngest participants were from the 4th form of Usogorsk secondary school. Moreover, there was a research group consisted of junior and senior schoolchildren and they participated under general conditions. Their work devoted to Mezen and Udora paintings was highly praised. The schoolchildren were also very artistic and they presented a mini collection of different things decorated by Mezen and Udora figures themselves. So their work River Figures got the top position at the conference.
Research group of the River Figures project
The second place was given to «Conservation of anseriformes migratory birds in the Republic of Komi» presented by Anna Kuznetsova, the representative of Komi Republican Ecological Center from Syktyvkar.
Anna Kuznetsova, the representative of Komi Republican Ecological Center from Syktyvkar
The work «How people did the laundry and wash the floors in the last century» prepared by Nina Uljanova from the 11th form of Glotovo secondary school was in the third position.
Nina Uljanova (in the foreground)
The jury particularly noted the teamwork of the representatives from Usogorsk secondary school devoted to one of the local bogs. These schoolchildren are from the 4th form only and that is why their work was out of competition.
Young bogs’ researchers
«This year the level of the research works is a bit lower in comparison with the last year. However, the issues chosen by the schoolchildren are very interesting and the researches should be continued», – said the representative of the conference jury, Model River Mezen project coordinator Nikolay Shilov in the end of the conference.
Model River Mezen project coordinator Nikolay Shilov
After the formal part of the conference master classes on felting and Mezen paintings were prepared for children. Young researchers made tiny felt boots (valenki) and decorated wooden souvenirs by Mezen figures with great pleasure.
Master class on felting
Master class on Mezen paintings
The representative of the Republican Protected Areas Center Margarita Shilova gave a lecture to the teachers about extracurricular environmental activities for schoolchildren.
The representative of the Republican Protected Areas Center Margarita Shilova
The participants of the conference
Photos by Nadezhda Morozova
CREATE AN ETHNIC PATH, OPEN A POTTERY AND REBUILD THE CHURCH
| «Model river «Mezen» project by Just AuthorThese were the ideas suggested by rural territorial self-governments and the Udora branch of the Komi Voytyr interregional public movement during the round table meeting held on 2 February 2018 in the business incubator of Usogorsk, Udora district. The round table meeting was entitled as Project Activity and Fund Raising for Local Initiatives.
The meeting was attended by representatives of territorial self-governments of Usogorsk, Koslan, Blagoyevo, Seliyb, Chim, and Razgort. Valentina Semyashkina, Deputy Director and Local Communities Project Manager of the Silver Taiga Foundation, and Olga Torlopova, head of the tourist information center of the Syktyvdin Arts and Crafts Club Zaran, shared their ideas on project activity and experience in grants competition with the Udora public activists.
Olga Torlopova, head of the tourist information center of the Zaran Syktyvdin Arts and Crafts Club
Valentina Semyashkina recommended to the self-government activists not to aim globally when solving a social problem, but to focus on specific tasks and actual results which are measurable and estimable. The description of the actions listed in the project must contain the required resources.
Valentina Semyashkina, Deputy Director of the Silver Taiga Foundation, and participants of the round table meeting
The Silver Taiga representative also highlighted that any project consisted of coherent and mutually connected actions. To plan the project one should always set the deadline. In addition to personal opinion, the applicant should also support the relevance of the problem by some facts, for instance, by statistical data. It is possible to quote opinions of experts or refer to publications in the media. Grantors also approve of interviews of local people or their appeals attached to the application.
Olga Torlopova spoke in detail about how to raise money for social projects through grant funding. Since 2015 the tourist information center of the Zaran Syktyvdin Arts and Crafts Club managed by her implemented the budget of 685,630 rubles obtained through grant competitions. The Fresh Milk project in the village of Seyty, Syktyvdin district, was granted 605,993 rubles, with 319,000 of them having been used already. With Zaran’s help Syktyvdin territorial self-government bodies got financial support for their projects from the charity foundation Kind City of St. Petersburg, charity foundation of Elena and Gennady Timchenko, and smaller municipal grants and grants of the Governor of the Komi Republic.
“Participation in grant competition is not easy. We started with talking to people who had experience in getting grants. We tried to learn from them,” Olga Torlopova shared in her report.
According to her, many people don’t have enough courage to participate in grant competitions just for fear. They have the thoughts like “we are small people, we live far from the center, we won’t be able to compete at the national level”. But Olga Torlopova says that grantors are very nice to applicants, and they are to the same extent interested in allocation of the funds to projects. “You can always call to foundations’ representatives and get their consultation, if there are any difficulties with preparing your application,” Olga states. And the Timchenko Foundation’s experts even invited those who got to the semi-final of the competition to their Archangelsk office to help them finalize the applications.
“Grantors pay lots of attention to participation of local communities in projects. Even if the author of the project managed to gather a team of like-minded fellows, it is not enough. The application should state that all residents of a particular area are interested in making the project work. When we prepared the application for the Fresh Milk project funding, we visited Seyty, conducted a meeting and asked the residents if they were ready to participate in the project implementation. Only when we made sure they supported us we continued our work,” Olga Torlopova says.
In addition, the author has to state his or her previous experience in acting to meet the public interests in the application. For example, the residents of Seyty managed to reconstruct a chapel on their own, and that served well in favour of the project. The grantors understood clearly that the local residents were far from being inert. It is also important to reflect the project prospects after the funds are spent in the application.
When the application is assessed, grantors always try to identify if the project team has any partners from other organizations, is adjacent areas are involved in the project. It would be also useful to ask your partners to write supporting letters.
The application should also state the personal contribution of an applicant. It doesn’t have to be money. Available premises, transport or tools are also considered as personal contribution.
The Zaran representative warned the activists that experts of foundations follow closely the way potential beneficiaries behave in social networks, if they have any personal profiles, if they post information about their activity in mass media.
Activists of Udora territorial self-governments, in their turn, shared their project activity plans. For example, Elena Budrina and Tatyana Ermishina are planning to create an ethnic path called Kytshyas and an environmental path near the village of Ertom. According to the activists, tourism business development is one of the alternatives to revitalize the village. Razgort village has an idea to open a pottery, where it will be possible to reproduce the unique local style of ceramics. The craftsman who knows the art is still alive, but he is already 82, so the project author Ekaterina Pokrovskaya fears that he may have too little time to pass his skills over to the younger generation, and in this case the old traditions will be lost forever.
Tatyana Ermishina (Blagoyevo), Elena Budrina (Koslan)
Olga Busheneva (Seliyb), Ekaterina Pokrovskaya (Razgort), Dina Chuprova (Patrakovo)
Tatyana Kornoukhova from Blagoyevo supported actively the necessity to reconstruct the church in the village of Vendinga, even though the place can boast of many other sights. It was there that the first territorial school and hospital were built. Vendinga was also the first village in Udora to grow potatoes. However, Tatyana believes it is the church that can become the brand of the village.
Tatyana Kornoukhova (Blagoyevo)
To conclude the round table meeting, the participants exchanged their contact details to share the project development information in different places.
IS IT NECESSARY TO COUNT SALMON REDDS?
| «Model river «Mezen» project by Just AuthorThe Silver Taiga Foundation has published the booklet about the monitoring system of the salmon fish species spawning.
In 2011 the Foundation together with the partners initiated the monitoring of the Atlantic salmon spawning quality under Model River Mezen project aiming at defining the changes in the number of spawning fish on Mezen River tributaries with the total length more than 200 km. The received monitoring data can be used further in the implementation of the measures of the population conservation and restoration. The given method does not give a good quantification of the local population but it allows to register the spawning activity in the head of Mezen River.
The method has the following advantages: it is not difficult to realize the method, it is not necessary to complete the authorization documents and there are no special requirements to the expedition equipment. In the other regions the monitoring system of the salmon fish species spawning is conducted in the other way – they use sonar sets to register the migratory species, flying machines or they catch the fish.
Due to the interest of the non-governmental environmental organizations and sectoral science to the used spawning records methods, the Foundation together with Karelian scientific center of the Russian Academy of Sciences have tried to combine the gained experience and to present it to all interested parties for practical application.
The Foundation thank everyone who took part in the booklet elaboration.
The booklet is available in the Russian language.
ARE FSC STANDARDS COMPATIBLE WITH IFM REGULATIONS?
| «High Conservation Value Forests» project by Just AuthorThe Silver Taiga Foundation for Sustainable Development has drafted the Analytical Note to assess compliance of environmental limitations of the new FSC Standard with the IFM (intensive forest management) regulations in the Dvina-Vychegda taiga forest area.
“It has been a tradition since Soviet time to develop taiga extensively, which meant accelerated exploitation of logging companies’ forest stock and moving to new intact areas. To a large extent, no reforestation or forest tending activities were conducted, and logged tracts overgrew naturally. As a result, intact coniferous taiga areas were reducing, and they shifted further from wood processing centers. At the same time, low value secondary tree stands, which were of no interest for harvesters due to the fact that they were represented by deciduous or deciduous-coniferous forest stands with low market value appeared at harvested areas,” Yury Pautov, the Foundation’s director, comments the situation in the forestry sector of Russia.
According to Yury Pautov, at the beginning of 2000s, many companies of the taiga zone, especially in the European part of Russia, faced the threat of depletion of forest resources already in the coming decades rather than in the long-term perspective.
As many experts see it, the way out of the situation is transition from extensive to intensive forest management. Environmentalists, who back the idea of preservation of last remaining intact forests being the most valuable and unique from the point of forest landscape biodiversity, also support the proposal.
Intensive forest management model implies targeted cultivation of required species of the needed quality at developed forest areas near wood processing centers that benefit from comprehensive road network and availability of human resources. One of the key components of the scheme is to minimize wood transportation costs. Higher yield under intensive forest management practices is generated due to regular tending of growing stock, removal of unneeded species to ensure optimal density and maximum growth of target species, and “commercial” thinning in middle-aged forest stand. Owing to such practices one can achieve two-fold increase of high-value timber harvesting volume, if compared to traditional extensive forest management.
The talk about the need to intensify the forestry sector has been ongoing for the recent 10-15 years, and it was only in 2016-2017 that new regulations for the intensive model were prepared, however not for the whole Russia, but for some forest type zones only, including the Dvina-Vychegda taiga forest area, where Ilim Group and Mondi claiming the necessity to introduce IFM maintain their leased areas.
In line with the above, a new national FSC Forest Management Standard was started to be planned in 2016, and it is expected to be adopted in 2018, so all certified companies will have to meet the new requirements of the standard.
Meanwhile, the IFM regulations and the new FSC Standard were developed by different groups of experts, which could lead to contradictions between FSC requirements and the ones of the intensive forest management regulations.
“Just a few years ago we undertook some attempts to compare the requirements under the certification and IFM, but there were a lot of concerns that the alignment process will fail during their development and approval. That is why it was only in the recent period that the foundation initiated a comparative analysis of the new forest planning and FSC certification documents in order to identify any possible mutual incompliances, contradictions or mismatches,” Yury Pautov says.
In the mid-2017 there were several versions both of the new FSC Standard and new IFM regulations, but final documents were not ready yet, therefore completion of the analysis had to be postponed all the time. The most recent IFM regulation entitled Forest Tending Rules was approved and published on December 22, 2017, then it became possible to finish the work. For the analysis the stated regulatory documents, as well as numerous reviews and comments of forestry and FSC certification experts were taken into account. A special focus was paid to discussion of the issues in the Internet, at various workshops and working groups’ meetings.
As a result of the work conducted Silver Taiga’s experts have drawn a conclusion that there are no serious contradictions between the requirements of the new FSC Standard and new regulations for intensive forest management. However, the Foundation suggests discussing and commenting the provided Analytical Report to all stakeholders. As Yury Pautov highlighted, it mostly considers regulations for the Dvina-Vychegda taiga forest area, but they may also be useful for other forest type zones of Russia where intensive forest management is planned to be introduced.a
About “Keys” to Preserve Biodiversity
| «High Conservation Value Forests» project by Just AuthorThe Silver Taiga has developed the method to monitor biodiversity preservation measures for multi-skilled environmental experts.
The methods for monitoring of conservation of Key Forest Biotopes and Key Elements are predetermined by the need in quality and quantity assessment of the forest landscape biodiversity preservation approach which is new for Russia, and the necessity to analyze the experience of harvesting with conservation of biodiversity that has been accumulated over the recent years by FSC certified companies in the Komi Republic.
As early as in 2009 the Silver Taiga Foundation prepared Recommendations to Preserve Biodiversity during Harvesting in the Komi Republic that were approved by the regional Forest Committee. In 2010, a brochure with the same title was published. Recommendations were mostly applied by certified companies meeting the national FSC Forest Management Standard requirements. The companies have gained a great experience in biodiversity preservation, including the one related to mapping and conservation of Key Forest Biotopes and Key Elements, imitation of natural forest dynamics during harvesting operations and consideration of landscape features in the planning and harvesting processes, over 8 years.
The Silver Taiga Foundation’s experts were active to provide information support to logging companies through trainings for their employees, field trips on the Recommendations application, and arranging forest management planning workshops. A special attention was given to explaining the requirements to biodiversity preservation, natural forest dynamics imitation and landscape approach to planning and harvesting by certified forestry companies of the region.
The field workshop
However, the key objective of the Recommendations is not to make companies leave Key Biotopes and Key Elements at logging sites, but to maintain environmental functions of the forest after cutting to preserve the biodiversity of forest ecosystems and forest landscapes in general.
That is why the Foundation initiated the development of the method to monitor the assessment of Key Forest Biotopes and Key Elements conservation and their performance of the biodiversity preservation functions on the local, ecosystems and landscape levels.
The Key Biotopes and Key Elements preserved at logging plots were monitored in 2014-2017 by various methods. The experts of the Silver Taiga Foundation and Tekhkarta LLC tested different approaches, as a result a simple and reproducible Method for Monitoring of Conservation of Key Forest Biotopes and Key Elements that can be used both by certified companies and by certification authorities and consultants preparing companies for the certification has been developed. In other words, the method is designed for multi-skilled environmental experts familiar with the FSC certification requirements and biodiversity preservation methods in forest use.
Monitoring
During the field test of the method in 2017 it was adjusted by the Silver Taiga’s experts and offered to the general public for discussion and use by all stakeholders.
“Core” Agreement Made in Komi Forestry Sector
| «High Conservation Value Forests» project by Just AuthorA moratorium agreement on preservation of intact forest landscapes and intact forest areas between Mondi Group and non-governmental environmental organizations was signed by Klaus Peller, Mondi Syktyvkar Managing Director, Gladys Naylor, Mondi Group Head of Sustainable Development, Nikolay Shmatkov, Head of WWF Russia’s Forest Program, and Yury Pautov, Director of the Silver Taiga Foundation for Sustainable Development.
The agreement was authenticated by the stakeholders as early as during the preparation for the FSC General Assembly in Vancouver (Canada) and is dated 1 October 2017. However, the final check and alignment of the document with all cartographic materials attached was implemented at the beginning of December 2017.
Signing of the moratorium agreement became the result of the 10-year-long joint efforts of the Silver Taiga Foundation, Mondi Group and WWF Russia with regard to preservation of intact forest landscapes (IFL) and intact forest areas (IFA) in the Komi Republic, and near its borders with Arkhangelsk and Kirov Regions and Perm Krai. During the many years of work a number of IFLs with an area over 50 thousand ha and most valuable IFAs were mapped. The most significant parts (cores) were determined, and conservation measures were suggested and discussed.
The agreement became the final compromise between Mondi Group, its structural subdivision in the Komi Republic Mondi Syktyvkar, and non-governmental environmental organizations to preserve the last remaining intact forest landscapes in the European North that are most valuable on the national and international levels and recognized by the global community as high conservation value forests (HCVF).
Preservation of these territories is largely predetermined by the FSC certification process development, with Mondi Syktyvkar having been part of it since 2005 through performing certification requirements on identification and conservation of HCVF and taking higher liabilities to preserve environmentally valuable areas.
Environmental organizations, in their turn, undertake to continue their work on determination of environmental and nature protection value of these territories and provision them with the official status of protected natural areas.
For some of the areas listed a significant part of the job has been already done. For instance, the Uftyuga-Ilesha landscape reserve was founded in the Verkhnyaya Vashka IFL in Arkhangelsk Region in 2015, and in the part located in the Komi Republic there are activities to found the Osa reserve. Most part of the Koygorodok IFL is reserved for the national park to be arranged. The Silver Taiga Foundation started preparation of the technical and economic feasibility study for the park, while regional reserves are planned to be arranged at other IFLs listed in the agreement according to the Strategic Plan for Development of the System of Specially protected Natural Areas of the Komi Republic (before 2030).
It should be noted that all this work would be impossible without the financial support Mondi Group provided for the HCVF project of the Silver Taiga Foundation which primarily aims at preservation and sustainable development of IFLs in the Komi Republic and adjacent regions.
The agreement will serve as a guide for other certified companies of the North-West of Russia and motivate non-certified companies to preserve last intact areas of Europe. The explanation is that it is not possible to purchase wood harvested at such areas for Mondi Group according to the FSC Controlled Wood standard. It increases the chance to conserve IFLs and IFAs in the long-term perspective significantly.
“For the Silver Taiga Foundation the agreement is a great achievement. Actually, it is the recognition of the many years of our efforts, and we consider the document a kind of a New Year present for the whole environmental community of Europe,” Yury Pautov summed up.
General map attached to the agreement
Is Full Conservation of Mapped HCVF Possible in Foreseeable Future?
| «High Conservation Value Forests» project by Just AuthorThis question among others related to sustainable forest management and FSC certification was raised by the participants of the workshop Preservation of High Conservation Value Forests in Russia’s Part of the Barents Region: Perspectives and Limitations held in St. Petersburg on 21 December 2017. Yury Pautov, director of the Silver Taiga Foundation for Sustainable Development, and Nikolay Shuktomov, Silver Taiga’s forestry coordinator, took part in the forum.
The workshop was attended by a respectable audience from the Komi Republic, Karelia, Arkhangelsk and Leningrad Regions. It is notable that representatives of the regions’ forestry companies also participated in the event together with representatives of NGOs and FSC certification expert community.
According to Silver Taiga’s director Yury Pautov, the participants of the workshop tried to match the initiatives on preservation of HCVFs mapped under the international BPAN project on the system of protected natural areas of the Barents Region, as well as the ones identified by forest leaseholders in the FSC certification process, with the initiatives on HCVF preservation and intensive forest management integration under the Boreal Forest Platform (http://borealforestplatform.org/en/). It was necessary to evaluate the way these parallel processes influence each other and expand the cumulative effect of each project.
The Komi Republic presented two reports at the forum – Yury Pautov and Nikolay Shuktomov showed the presentation entitled Evolution of Silver Taiga’s Relations with FSC Certificate Holders with Regard to HCVF Preservation in Komi 2002-2017, and Mondi Syktyvkar’s representative Denis Popov spoke about development of the HCVF system in the company’s leased area. The reports demonstrated the emergence and development of the HCVF system in the region, its up-to-date achievements and handling the challenges.
As the expert community sees it, the Komi republic is the most advanced region in terms of certification and HCVF preservation owing to Silver Taiga’s active cooperation with certified companies and regional authorities. The Komi Republic’s experience in this field is widely shared and used in neighbouring regions.
Meanwhile, the Republic still has some unresolved issues that were largely discussed at the workshop. One of the hottest issues was if mapping and preservation of HCVF in the leased areas of certified companies could ensure reliable and long-term conservation of high value protected natural areas in the foreseeable future.
According to Yury Pautov, it is only possible to ensure integrity of IFL and IFA through creation of reserves, SPNAs of federal, regional or municipal levels, in other words, through providing an official status of a protected natural area to the sites. However, this requires cooperation of not only NGOs and certified companies, but also regional authorities and federal bodies managing the forest fund and the SPNA system.
Another hot regional problem emerged in the middle of 2017 in connection with mapping of the so called regional HCVF, Rare Ecosystems of the Komi Republic, based on the BPAN project method. Mapping and identification of rare ecosystems – fir and spruce forests and dry pine forests – was performed by NGO Transparent World with the help of space images, and it turned out that such rare ecosystems were not that rare in the southern and central parts of the Komi Republic (see the map attached).
Map of high value forest areas in the Komi Republic
“It is mandatory for certified companies to identify such HCVFs, and the best available information about them now is the cartographic material shared at www.hcvf.ru. Some certificate holders have already identified some of such rare ecosystems and they take efforts to preserve them, but most certified companies of the Komi Republic will need clarifications of the information on forest surveying or scientific materials, which is time consuming, costly, and requires involvement of experts. For the companies under the certification process or those that are just planning to get certificates it is also necessary to become aware of the information and use it as a basis to build the HCVF system at their leased areas,’ Yury Pautov underlined.
According to his words, what remains unclear is what to do with remote mapping of HCVF-3 Rare Ecosystems as part of the FSC Controlled Wood standard. Based on the new version of the standard, the use of wood harvested in HCVF is unacceptable. However, experts are far from being absolutely sure that all areas mapped with the help of space images are actually rare ecosystems. The participants of the workshop have agreed that in the near future it is necessary to clarify the borders of HCVF-3 Rare Ecosystems in the Komi Republic in order to provide the optimal option to FSC certificate holders and FSC Controlled Wood auditors.
What Does It Cost to Build a House of FSC Certified Wood?
| News by Just AuthorThis unexpected, but meaningful question was raised by the participants of the round table meeting held on 29 November 2017 in the office of the Silver Taiga Foundation for Sustainable Development. The topic for the conversation was relations with uncertified forestry companies that have undertaken an obligation to follow the Standard for the so-called controlled wood. The round table meeting was entitled respectively – Local Residents and Uncertified Forestry Business (Mechanism for FSC Controlled Wood Standard, Public Access to Logging Information Following Forest Auctions). The event was arranged with the support of WWF as part of the Barents-Baltic Program Nature and Man.
Vadim Krasnopolsky, WWF Russia project coordinator, and Nadezhda Iniyeva, WWF Russia expert
Representatives of Mondi Syktyvkar and local communities of some of the Komi forestry areas got together to discuss possible options for the public participation in the forest management process. The Silver Taiga Foundation has conducted consultations on sustainable forest management for several years, so public activists are now well informed about the FSC certification, however, they know little of the Controlled Wood Standard, as the meeting revealed.
All attention to the screen
The round table meeting was attended by public activists of Kortkeros, Syktyvdin, Priluzye and Udora districts of the Komi Republic who represent public forest councils of rural areas and the Komi Voytyr Interregional Public Movement. Silver Taiga’s Valentina Semyashkina, Nikolay Shuktomov and Olga Sazhina reported to the participants on the FSC Controlled Wood Standard mechanism and the procedure of forestry auctions in the Republic.
Nikolay Shuktomov, Silver Taiga Foundation Forestry Coordinator
A lot of logging companies operate in the Komi Republic, however, it was Mondi Syktyvkar that was invited to the meeting, as it is one of the biggest FSC certificate holders and one of the key consumers of wood in the region. The mill has its own harvesting division, in addition, it purchases wood from other non-certified companies, as the amount of own certified wood is not enough to cover the demand. Interaction with external suppliers imposes additional liabilities for the company. The company meets the FSC Certification Standard and FSC Controlled Wood Standard requirements through setting certain requirements for the suppliers and checking their compliance.
‘The controlled wood standard was introduced in 2004, and it is quite difficult to be fulfilled. Some of the companies haven’t yet started operating under the new standard, even though the transition period was prolonged twice. The debates are still ongoing regarding what to do with the standard’, Marina Korolyova, head of certification and environment department, Forestry, Mondi Syktyvkar, said at the meeting.
One of the causes that triggered the Controlled Wood Standard was the need to provide processing companies with the opportunity to use non-certified wood in the production process by mixing it with certified material in order to mark the finished goods with the FSC Mix label. Nevertheless, to make it possible the company has to do a lot to meet complex FSC requirements.
Tatyana Dyukova from Mondi Syktyvkar’s certification and environment department shared the experience of how the FSC Controlled Wood Standard operates.
Tatyana Dyukova, expert of the certification and environment department, Mondi Syktyvkar
To exclude raw material from inacceptable sources to meet the Controlled Wood Standard requirements the company makes planned and unplanned audits of contracting and subcontracting organizations. Unplanned checks are conducted in case of any claims with regard to suppliers’ or subsuppliers’ failure to meet the requirements for controlled wood. The checks are held by the company’s employees, but as the voluntary forest certification is based on the principle of transparency for the public, representatives of stakeholders, as well as public activists, are also invited to participate.
A special focus is given by the company to settling of heated conflicts related to traditional rights of the locals, including the ones for resource management, and resolution of disputes arising from observing cultural interests of indigenous peoples and their traditional and cultural self-identification.
‘To take risk mitigating measures the company studies public opinion, checks if there are any heated conflicts, consults with district and rural administrations, talks to specialists from district forestries and representatives of NGOs like Komi Voytyr and the Komi Republic Association of Hunters and Fishers. Any interested party may take part in the auditing process, the company considers all complaints in line with the established procedure and takes appropriate measures, as it decides whether it will cooperate with the violating supplier or not’, Tatyana Dyukova said in her report.
The company gets the information via requests. All mail correspondence is being currently replaced by e-mailing. However, many public activists have no access to the Internet, so consultations are arranged with them by phone. The survey shows if there are any complaints or conflicts arising from the activity of this or that supplier.
Exchanging opinions
The participants of the meeting wondered if it was possible to track the source of wood designated for housing construction. How can individuals find out if the house they are building will be made of certified wood? According to Tatyana Dyukova, information about FSC certified companies is in public access, the list of FSC certificate holders can be found at the website of the Russian FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) office https://ru.fsc.org/ru-ru/cert/fsc_companii. But the information on companies meeting the controlled wood standard is a commercial secret, as Tatyana reported. ‘It is confidential information, but stakeholders, including public activists, are entitled for this information, and we are ready to provide you with the lists of companies supplying wood to Mondi Syktyvkar from various districts’, Tatyana said.
The issue regarding “integrity” of the sources of wood for individual housing construction raised at the meeting was quite significant. It has been thought up to the present time that only big companies supplying goods to the environmentally sensitive European market have to get certification. But if consumers at the Komi Republic market will pay that much attention to product labelling as foreign buyers, small companies will also have to obtain certificates, otherwise their wood will not ne demanded. At the moment small businesses and self-employed entrepreneurs dealing with logging and wood processing in Komi find it impossible to get FSC certificates due to high cost of the above, services of auditors are unaffordable for small companies.
To summarize the results of the round table meeting facilitated by Silver Taiga head of the administration of the Spasorub village, Priluzye district, noted that she had finally built the system with all the FSC information coming from different sources. It turned out that she, just like many others, missed the only information “puzzle” – the one regarding controlled wood. Therefore, according to her, it will be easier for the interested parties to build relations with all forest management process participants, as now each of the parties understands its objective.
Natalia Vetoshkina, representative of the public forest council of Keres, Kortkeros district, and Oksana Pomysova, head of Spasorub administration, Priluzye district
‘Some time ago we managed to protect the interests of the local population in the conflict with a certified company. The locals were provided with 4 quartiles of forest for traditional use. At this meeting we learnt how to build relations with a non-certified company fulfilling the Controlled Wood Standard. Informed means protected. Today we got some guidance for action. I can’t help waiting, I want to bring some of the violations to light’, Vasily Mikhailov, representative of the public forest council of Keres, Kortkeros district, joked.
Vasily Mikhailov, representative of the public forest council of Keres, Kortkeros district
Most of the round table participants were happy to note young activists at the meeting. The young people showed their readiness to participate in the events under the international Barents-Baltic Program Nature and Man spoken about by Vadim Krasnopolsky, project coordinator of World Wildlife Fund (WWF Russia, Barents Sea office). In particular, he said that Murmansk region is conducting forest regeneration activities under this project. Near the Pomor village of Kuzomen a desert is emerging – more and more sand can be found in the area. Therefore, regeneration activities have been launched as part of the project. It is notable that all the activities involve school children and school forestries. Teachers Ivan Tugolukov (Priluzye district) and Mikhail Gabov (Kortkeros district), who were present at the meeting as well, said they were ready to start work on revival and activation of school forestries in their villages.
Ivan Tugolukov, representative of the public forest council of Priluzye district
Preserving Old Cemeteries and Sites for Traditional Natural Resource Use from Logging Activities
| News by Just AuthorThe idea was suggested by participants of the training workshop “FSC Certification as a Mechanism to involve Local Communities in Forest Management” arranged by the Silver Taiga Foundation for Sustainable Development for the group of public activists of Syktyvdin district. The workshop was held in the Foundation’s office on 31 October 2017. The workshop was attended by residents of the villages of Pazhga, Sludka, Zelenets, and the settlements of Yasneg and Mandach.
Foundation’s deputy director Valentina Semyashkina spoke about the FSC certification mechanism with the focus on social aspects.
“FSC certification is of special significance for the residents of Komi and many other forestry regions of Russia. It is explained by the fact that the Russian forestry legislation declares that the population has to participate in forest management, however the Forestry Code and other legal acts fail to describe the mechanisms making such declarations possible. In addition, Russia does not support the rights of the local population for traditional use of natural resources. In particular, traditional hunting grounds, the rights for use of which were inherited from generation to generation, are not envisaged legally. One can surely say that Russia implements the mechanism protecting the rights of small-numbered indigenous peoples, but as you might know, the Komi people is not part of them. So, under such conditions the FSC certification tool seems to be the only real mechanism in Russia that enables the population to protect their rights and interests in the field of traditional use of natural resources,” Valentina Semyashkina explained.
Valentina Semyashkina
In fact, allocation of HCVF – high conservation value forests – becomes the tool to exercise the traditional rights of the local population. Olga Sazhina, public relations expert of the Foundation, spoke about potential types of social HCVF. The list includes places for collection of mushrooms, berries and wild-growing herb, harvesting of traditional craft materials (birchbark, osier), fishing spots, hunting grounds, areas for harvesting of firewood and construction material for the needs of the locals, sources of potable water (springs, wells), recreational areas, archeological monuments, burying grounds (cemeteries), war monuments, areas of decimation in the repression era, and other sites.
Identification of social HCVF is part of duties of certified logging companies, however, the companies often treat this responsibility formally, and they just send written requests to local self-government authorities, which do not possess any detailed information. As a result, social HCVF are usually established in the areas populated with the people who are interested in their rights and ready to protect them, where both the locals and the enterprise are eager to cooperate.
Albert Loginov, head of the Udorachi indigenous people community shared the social HCVF experience in Udora district at the workshop.
Valentina Smalii and Albert Loginov
“When the certification mechanism started developing, we established the indigenous people community. Even though the idea was initiated by 6 peoples only, today the organization represents the whole district. The community operates based on the declarative principle, it has a charter, but it is not a legal entity. It took us long to convince Mondi Syktyvkar that we are a legitimate body. We had a long correspondence having generated a heavy pile of letters. Eventually, the Udorachi community and Mondi Syktyvkar concluded an Agreement on cooperation with regard to managing forest sites. The agreement is still valid. The agreement is prolonged each year, unless there are any disputes. There were some conflicts, of course, but the company always met our demands. What is most important is local residents have to be proactive,” A.Loginov highlighted.
As the public activist said, a map of traditional hunting grounds with trappers’ trails was created based on the results of the survey and interviews held in Bolshaya Pyssa. The map shows 84 hunting huts, while the total population of the village is below 400 people. Some villagers have up to 4 huts. Many of them spend up to 1.5 months in the forest, as hunting is one of means of sustenance for them.
The Udorachi indigenous people community is not the only public organization participating in the FSC certification process. Today, there are Public Forest Councils established through the support of the Silver Taiga Foundation in Priluzye, Kortkeros and Udora districts.
The workshop participants, in their turn, shared the information about the conflicts they faced in residential areas. A lot of complaints were given with regard to a logging company operating at the leased forest area near Sludka. According to Tatyana Zhuravlyova, representative of the local administration, no forest is left along the 30 km road from the village of Bolshaya Parma to Shilador. Residents of Sludka, Shilador, Ipatovo, Prokopyevka, Bolshaya Parma, Ust-Pozhega, and Pozyalem have to harvest wood for own needs at the logging plot adjacent to Ust-Vym district border 50 km away from the villages. Even though the company is an FSC certificate holder, it has not coordinated its harvesting plan with the local population.
The population of Sludka is intended to struggle for a more accessible area for the site where they can harvest firewood and construction materials for the needs of the locals. In addition, they suggest creating HCVF at the burying ground of political prisoners who were exiled to the area included in the rural settlement of Sludka. Such grounds were also found in Yasneg.
Today, as was summed up by the workshop participants, it is absence or shortage of information that prevents successful implementation of social aspects of FSC certification. Local residents have no information about a company, while the company lacks information about the locals. There are also certain challenges in determining legitimate public officials in villages. Meanwhile, the efforts of local administrations are not always enough.
During the discussion