Certification to 50,000 hectares of natural forest in Laos

Press release 36/2006
8 February, 2006


Certification organisation Smartwood has granted a FSC certificate to two tropical forests in Laos as verification of sustainable forest management. Finland has been supporting promotion of sustainable forestry and village forest management in Laos since the year 1995.

The certificates were granted to forests located in the provinces of Savannakhet and Khammouane with a combined area of approximately 50,000 hectares. The achievement is significant in many ways. It shows that it is possible to manage natural tropical forests in a sustainable manner, and in a way that benefits the local village communities, authorities and, for instance, furniture manufacturers, who export their products to the European markets. The villagers use the revenues from forestry to develop their own villages.

The forest management system used is based on a Laotian version of village forest management. The certified forests are managed by eleven villages in cooperation with provincial and municipal forest authorities. The village forest management areas of Savannakhet and Khammaouane are the first certified natural forests in Asia with a village-based forest management system. So far, most of the certified forests in Asia have been planted forests.

Asia is suffering from lack of certified tropical hardwood. In principle, all wood that can be proved to originate from a source managed in a sustainable manner can be marketed at a higher price.

The original plan was to have these forests certified already in 1999, but, at that point, the Laotian government was not yet ready to allow the activities of independent certification organisations coming from outside of Laos.

Village-based forest management areas already total over 500,000 hectares in a project sponsored by Finland and the World Bank. The intention is to have most of these areas certified in the future. Laos can become one of the most important producers of certified natural timber in Asia. This would create incentives for villagers and state authorities to practice environmentally, socially and productively sustainable forest management.

Additional information: Development Cooperation Counsellor Matti Junnila, Unit for Asia and Oceania, tel. +358 9 1605 6359