Please download the Full Communiqué hereafter: Forest Stewardship Council Re-Associates with Danzer Group
Independent Verification Confirms FSC Conditions Have Been Met

BONN, Germany (14 August 2014) – The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) announced today that it decided to lift the disassociation from the Danzer Group, after independent verification confirmed that the company had met the criteria required by FSC.

“This story demonstrates the rigor and real benefits of FSC certification,” said Kim Carstensen, director general of the Forest Stewardship Council. “We welcome the Danzer Group back to FSC, and we are convinced it now has what it takes to manage well-performing FSC certified operations in the Congo Basin. And the people in and around Yalisika will feel these positive impacts for many years to come,” he added.

On 21 May 2013, FSC disassociated from Danzer after in-depth research by a complaints panel found evidence of involvement of a former subsidiary – SIFORCO – in unacceptable activities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), specifically in the community of Yalisika and the surrounding area. The complaints panel was formed after Greenpeace International filed a complaint with FSC’s dispute resolution system against SIFORCO and its former parent company, the Danzer Group.

Disassociation meant that the Danzer Group – and all of its subsidiaries – lost its FSC certifi-cation and the right to use FSC trademarks.

Soon after the FSC International Board of Directors decided to disassociate from Danzer, the company entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with FSC, which detailed the conditions required for re-association. In February 2014, the Forest Peoples Program (FPP), an NGO that supports the rights of peoples who live in forests, independently verified that Danzer had fulfilled the conditions in the MoU. One verification mission was conducted at Yalisika in the Democratic Republic of Congo and one at Industrie Forestière d’Ouesso (IFO), a subsidiary of Danzer in the Republic of Congo. During this exercise, key gaps were uncov-ered in the operations of both IFO and SIFORCO but FPP included specific recommendations to improve the situation in both places.

In July 2014, the FSC International Board of Directors approved a roadmap for the re-association with the Danzer Group, detailing the final steps Danzer must complete before FSC ended its disassociation.

Please download the Full Communiqué hereafter: Forest Stewardship Council Re-Associates with Danzer Group
Independent Verification Confirms FSC Conditions Have Been Met

To know more about this :

-          FSC-International press release (enclosed);

-          FSC-International website : https://ic.fsc.org/newsroom.9.857.htm;

-          Le communiqué de presse du Groupe DANZER : http://www.danzer.com/more-News.3175.0.html;

-          FSC Congo Basin website : https://congo-basin.fsc.org/newsroom.37.32.htm