Grantini 1 – a group of private Latvian forest owners –achieved FSC/Rainforest Alliance certification covering 984 hectares of forest.
During the last five years, the Latvian state forest enterprise Latvijas Valsts Mezi (LVM) was the only supplier of FSC certified timber for Latvia’s wood industry.
Since LVM manages approximately 50% of Latvia’s forests, domestic supplies of FSC-certified timber were plentiful.
Latvia has a well-developed processing industry that increasingly relies on FSC-certified raw material for exporting certified sawn and manufactured products.
The suspension of LVM’s FSC forest management certificate on 17 July 2010 caused a huge deficit in the FSC certified timber supply. Numerous local producers have had to stop production and sale of FSC certified products due to the lack of FSC-certified raw materials.
Market opportunity for smallholders
At the moment, the future of LVM’s certification remains unknown and no official information about renewal of FSC certificate has been released.
“The suspension from FSC certification of the Latvian state forests on 17 July 2010 has created new market opportunities for others who can offer FSC-pure timber on the Latvian market, and there is a new incentive for setting up FSC-certified groups of smallholders”, states Uldis Zurilo, Director of NEPCon in Latvia.
Manager of Grantini 1 group certificate Gunars Sturisa admits that the suspension also created some doubts about FSC: “Initially I was concerned that FSC certification might be a very expensive, complicated and bureaucratic. We were impressed by the fact that the FSC certificate of the biggest forest management enterprise in Latvia – LVM – had been suspended. If they could not implement the FSC requirements, how could we expect that small forest owners could do it?” As it turned out, they could.
Successful process
Mr. Sturisa explains: “After all, the process proved to be pretty straightforward. Of course we had to review all of our planned forest management activities and adapt to FSC requirements. We also evaluated our subcontractors providing logging, regeneration and improvement services. We made the decision to involve only qualified and predictable subcontractors for work in our certified group”.
He adds: “Quite unexpectedly, we have had an overwhelming level of response from other forest owners, who would like to join the Grantini 1 group. We carefully evaluated all applicants and while some were immediately included, others will have to work to meet the certification requirements before we can include them – typically due to environmental aspects, documentation and overall management of the forest".
Mr. Zurilo expects that FSC group certification will increasingly gain a footing in Latvia: “There are many benefits involved for the forest owners. Cost sharing and the possibility of getting a price premium are among the more obvious ones. But there are other benefits as well, including public relations as well as fostering of good relationships among the forest owners in the group. The group manager will usually be technically competent, and access to forestry expertise and other group resources makes it attractive for small forest owners to join the group“.
SIA Grantini is a forest owner and forest management company with 18 years of experience in forest management and forest regeneration activities. The certified group Grantini 1 sells certified timber to local and regional timber processing companies.
Related article:
Facts and fiction in Al-Jazeera's "Latvia's Pulp Fiction" (9/02 2011)