Fairwood Campaign Promotes Sustainable Use of Timber

Friends of the Earth (FoE) Japan has run what it calls its "Fairwood Campaign" calling for sustainable use of timber, since 2003. As part of the campaign, FoE co-hosted symposiums promoting the better use of timber in November 2003. At the symposiums, targeted at private companies and the public, they reported on the present situation of unsustainable logging in timber-producing countries and discussed countermeasures that timber-consuming countries should take to solve these problems.

During the same month, the Ministry of the Environment (MOE), which had been seeking proposals for environmental policy from citizens' organizations and businesses, selected FoE proposal as one of the best policy recommendations. FoE asserts that the use of Fairwood, environmentally-and-socially-fair timber, should be promoted by each sector, including the government, corporations, and consumers.

To the government, FoE suggested prescribing the use of Fairwood in the national Law on Promoting Green Purchasing, which requires the government to buy environmentally sound products. To companies, it proposed creating and disseminating guideline for timber procurement, and to consumers, introducing the system to promote the use of Fairwood.

FoE Japan plans to develop follow-up activities including surveys so that the MOE can work on the use of Fairwood as part of its policy.



Posted: 2004/06/29 12:04:47 PM
Japanese version