A SARAWAK civil society organisation, Save Rivers, has launched a campaign to collect signatures online to stop the certification of conflict timber in the state.

The ‘Stop the Chop’ campaign is targeting 10,000 signatures and has, to date, collected just over 60% of it.

The signatures are destined for Ben Gunneberg, the Chief Executive Officer and Secretary-General of Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) International, the world’s largest forest certification system, covering over 300 million hectares of certified forests in 46 member countries.

In the cover letter to Gunneberg, Save Rivers said that the people of Sarawak and “concerned citizens around the world”, are deeply troubled by the current Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme (MTCS) which they said “had repeatedly ignored the voices and land rights of indigenous communities in the Baram region of Sarawak”.

Save Rivers stated it were particularly concerned with the certification of the forest management units (FMUs) of Gerenai and Ravenscourt concessions which they claimed “have been certified without proper consultation of affected communities”.

The 148,000ha Gerenai FMU certification was reportedly processed in April and granted to logging company Samling.

Save Rivers chairman Petter Kallang, who is leading the signature campaign, had in June claimed the certification process did not fulfil the criteria of a free, prior and informed consent from the affected indigenous communities as the country was in a Covid-19 lockdown.

Malaysia had just imposed the movement-control order (MCO) to curb the spread of the pandemic.

“The process has fallen short on multiple fronts. Many communities are unaware they are within the concession areas, others have actively voiced their opposition and have been ignored.

“Neither the public nor the communities have access to the Social and Environmental Impact Assessments (SEIA),” Kallang stated.

He added that letters pointing out this lack of free, prior and informed consent were sent to the logging company Samling and the certification body SIRIM.

He said since there has been no adequate response, no adequate consultation and no resolution, to date, they have been left with no choice but to appeal to the international certification body PEFC.

The campaign aims to get PEFC to ensure the MTCS complies with PEFC certification standards, “not just on paper but on the ground where it really matters”.

“Communities in the Baram region rely heavily on the forest for both physical and cultural survival,” Save Rivers told Gunneberg.

“Considering the devastating impact of deforestation on threatened wildlife populations and the planet, we believe that the indigenous communities who call these forests home are the best custodians and protectors of that land.

“To exclude them from the consultation process is both unethical and a breach of the certification scheme.”

Save Rivers added that if MTCS is unable to share proper information, have consultations with the affected communities in good faith, full public transparency on the SEIA, respect of free, prior and informed consent of the local communities, including possibility of a total rejection of any logging in their territories, then PEFC should not pass the revised MTCS standard.

“We urge PEFC to use its considerable influence to ensure Malaysia cannot continue to sell conflict timber to the world.” – October 9, 2020.