WWF partnering with companies that destroy rainforests, threaten endangered species

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com
25 July 2011 Arguably the globe’s most well-known conservation organization, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), has been facilitating illegal logging, vast deforestation, and human rights abuses by pairing up with notorious logging companies in a flagging effort to convert them to greener practices, alleges a new report by Global Witness. Through its program, the Global Forest and Trade Network (GFTN), WWF has become entangled with some dubious companies, including one that is imperiling orangutans in Borneo and another which has been accused of human rights abuses in the Congo rainforest. Even with such infractions, these companies are still able to tout connections to WWF and use its popular panda logo. The Global Witness report, titled Pandering to the Loggers [pdf], calls for WWF to make large-scale changes in order to save the credibility of its corporate program. WWF’s 20-year-old Global Forest and Trade Network (GFTN) is an effort to support the trade of legal and sustainable timber products by molding the global market ‘into a positive force to save the world’s most valuable and threatened forests’. The program seeks to work with companies to end unsustainable practices—including illegal logging—within 5 years of joining. In all GFTN works with nearly 300 companies, 75 of which are loggers, to achieve better practices in the forestry and wood products industries. Yet the new report by Global Witness argues that GFTN is failing in its efforts to clean-up dirty companies, allowing some corporations to abuse their connections with the conservation giant. “When a landmark scheme created in the name of sustainability and conservation tolerates one of its member companies destroying orangutan habitat, something is going seriously wrong,” says Tom Picken, Forest Campaign Leader at Global Witness, in a press release. Global Witness points to three case studies that they say illustrate overall problems with WWF’s GFTN program. A Malaysian logging company, Ta Ann Holdings Berhad, is clearcutting rainforests in Borneo, including forests within the Heart of Borneo, an ambitious conservation campaign, headed by WWF, that focuses on preserving 220,000 square kilometers (85,000 square miles) across three countries in Borneo. Although achieving tacit agreement by the countries involved in 2007, the area continues to see vast forest clearing and fragmentation. Despite the fact that Ta Ann Holdings Berhad is one the companies clearing forests in WWF’s key conservation program, the wildlife organization has partnered with the logging company under GFTN. However, a representative from WWF told mongabay.com that there has been some miscommunication related to its specific relationship with Ta An Holdings Berhad. WWF says the company has been approved as a trade member (i.e. a company that processes, manufacturers, or trades in wood products) but not as a logging company. “The application from the forestry operations arm of Ta Ann has not been accepted yet, and therefore the company has never been listed, approved or regarded as a GFTN Forest Participant,” WWF explains. Yet, Global Witness says that when they attempted to contact WWF regarding Ta An Holdings Berhad’s membership they received mixed messages, including statements from a few that Ta An Holdings Berhad is a forestry member. WWF, however, insists that the company is not a logging member. WWF admitted to mongabay.com that they made a mistake and apologized ‘unreservedly for the resulting confusion’, but they say it is an ‘isolated incidence’. But Global Witness points to this confusion an example of systematic problems. “The apparent contradictions and confusion surrounding Ta Ann’s membership signifies a worrying lack of consistency and communication within GFTN, exacerbated by a lack of transparency,” reads the report. […]